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\NKLIN PHILP, 

WASHINtiTON. 



THE RECREATIONS 



OF A 



COUNTRY PARSON. 



THE 



RECREATIONS 




i:^ U 



OF A 



COUNTRY PARSON 



SECOND SERIES. 



NIXETEENTH EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
1874. 






author's editiok. 



.si^-T 



University Press: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 

Cambridge, 



CONTENTS. 



-♦- 



PASS 

CHAPTER I. 
JONCERNLNG THE PARSON'S CHOICE . . . • 7 



CHAPTER n. 
CONCERNLNG DISAPPOINTMENT AND SUCCESS . . 19 

CHAPTER in. 
OONCERNING SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS . • .63 

CHAPTER IV. 
CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS 96 

CHAPTER V. 
CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS 127 

CHAPTER VI. 
CONCERNING SCREWS 171 

CHAPTER VH. 
CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS 207 

CHAPTER VIII. 
CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER . 236 



Tl CONTENTS. 



CIIAPTER IX. 

PAOI 
CONCERNING MAN AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE . .261 



CHAPTER X. 
LIFE AT THE WATER-CURE 300 

CHAPTER XI. 
CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL .... 826 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND . . . 364 

CHAPTER Xm. 
CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS . . • . 386 

CHAPTER XIV. 
CONCLUSION 425 




CHAPTER I. 

CONCERNING THE PARSON'S CHOICE BETWEEN 
TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

NE very happy circumstance in a clergyman's 
lot, is that he is saved from painful perplex- 
ity as regards his choice of the scene in 
which he is to spend his days and years. I 
am sorry for the man who returns from Australia with a 
large fortune ; and with no further end in life than to 
settle down somewhere and enjoy it. For in most cases 
he has no special tie to any particular place ; and he 
must feel very much perplexed where to go. Should any 
person who may read this page cherish the purpose of 
leaving me a hundred thousand pounds to invest in a 
pretty little estate, I beg that he will at once abandon 
such a design. He would be doing me no kindness. I 
should be entirely bewildered in trying to make up my 
mind where I should purchase the property. I should be 
rent asunder by conflicting visions of rich English land- 
scape, and heathery Scottish hills : of seaside breezes, 
and inland meadows : of horse-chestnut avenues, and 
dark stern pine-woods. And after the estate had been 
bought, I should always be looking back and thinking I 
might have done better. So, on the whole, I would pre- 
fer that my reader should himself buy the estate, and 



8 THE pa:rson'S choice 

bequeath it to me : and then I could soon persuade my- 
self that it was the prettiest estate and the pleasantest 
neighbourhood in Britain. 

Now, as a general rule, the Great Disposer says to the 
parson. Here is your home, here lies your work through 
life : go and reconcile your mind to it, and do your best 
in it. No doubt there are men in the Church whose, 
gecius, popularity, influence, or luck is such, that they 
have a bewildering variety of livings pressed upon them *. 
but it is not so with ordinary folk ; and certainly it was 
not so with me. I went where Providence bade me go, 
which was not where I had wished to go, and not where 
I had thought to go. Many who know me through the 
pages which make this and a preceding volume, have 
said, written, and printed, that I was specially cut out for 
a country parson, and specially adapted to relish a quiet 
country life. Not more, believe me, reader, than your- 
self. It is in every man who sets himself to it to attain 
the self-same characteristics. It is quite true I have these 
now : but, a few years since, never was mortal less like 
them. No cockney set down near Sydney Smith at Fos- 
ton-le-Clay : no fish, suddenly withdrawn from its native 
stream : could feel more strange and cheerless than did I 
when I went to my beautiful country parish, where I 
have spent such happy days, and which I have come to 
love so much. 

I hay 3 said that the parson is for the most part saved 
the labour of determining where he shall pitch his tent : 
his place and his path in life are marked out for him. 
But he has his own special perplexity and labour : quite 
different from those of the man to whom the hundred 
thousand pounds to invest in land are bequeathed : still, 
as some perhaps would think, no less hard. His work is 



BETWEEN TOWN AND COLTNTRY. 9 

to reconcile his mind to the place where God has set 
him. Every ^nortal must, in many respects, face one of 
these two trials. There is all the world before you, where 
to choose ; and then the struggle to make a decided 
choice, with which you shall on reflection remain entirely 
satisfied. Or there is no choice at all : the Hand above 
gives you your place and your work ; and then there is 
the struggle heartily and cheerfully to acquiesce in the 
de3ree as to which you were not consulted. 

And this is not always an easy thing ; though I am sure 
that the man who honestly and Christianly tries to do 
it, will never fail to succeed at last. How curiously peo- 
ple are set down in the Church ; and indeed in all other 
callings whatsoever ! You find men in the last places 
they would have chosen ; in the last places for which you 
would say they are suited. You pass a pretty country 
church, with its parsonage hard-by embosomed in trees 
and bright with roses. Perhaps the parson of that church 
had set his heart on an entirely different kind pf charge : 
perhaps he is a disappointed man, eager to get away, and 
(the very worst possible policy) trying for every vacancy 
of which he can hear. You think, as you pass by, and 
sit down on the churchyard wall, how happy you could 
be in so quiet and sweet a spot : well, if you are willing 
to do a thing, it is pleasant : but if you are struggling 
with a chain you cannot break, it is miserable. The 
pleasantest thing becomes painful, if it is felt as a re- 
straint. "What can be cosier than the warm environment 
of sheet and blanket which encircles you in your snug 
bed ? Yet if you awake during the night at some alarm 
of peril, and by a sudden effort try at once to shake your- 
self clear of these trammels, you will, for the half-minute 
before you succeed, feel that soft restraint as irksome aa 



10 THE PARSON'S CHOICE 

iron fetters. ' Let your will lead whither necessity would 
drive,' said Locke, ' and you will always preserve your 
liberty.' No doubt, it is wise advice ; but how to do all 
that ? 

Well, it can be done : but it costs an effort. Great 
part of the work of the civilized and educated man con- 
sists of that which the savage, and even the uneducated 
man, would not regard as work at all. The things which 
cost the greatest effort may be done, perhaps, as you sit 
in an easy chair with your eyes shut. And such an effort 
is that of making up our mind to many things, both in 
our own lot, and in the lot of others. I mean not merely 
the intellectual effort to look at the success of other men 
and our own failure in such a way as that we shall be 
intellectually convinced that we have no right to complain 
of either : I do not mean merely the labour to put things 
in the right point of view : but the moral effort to look 
fairly at the facts not in any way disguised, — not tricked 
out by some skilful art of putting things ; — and yet to 
repress all wrong feeling; — all fretfulness, envy, jeal- 
ousy, dislike, hatred. I do not mean, to persuade our- 
selves that the grapes are sour ; but (far nobler surely) 
to be well aware that they are sweet, and yet be content 
that another should have them and not we. I mean the 
labour, when you have run in a race and been beaten, to 
resign your mind to the fact that you have been beaten, 
and to bear a kind feeling towards the man who beat you. 
And this is labour, and hard labour ; though very different 
from that physical exertion which the uncivilized man 
would understand by the word. Every one can under- 
stand that to carry a heavy portmanteau a mile is work. 
Not every one remembers that the owner of the port- 
manteau, as he walks on carrying nothing weightier than 



BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 11 

an umbrella, may be going through exertion much harder 
than that of the porter. Probably St. Paul never spent 
days of harder work in all his life, than the days he spent 
lying blind at Damascus, struggling to get free from the 
prejudices and convictions of all his past years, and re- 
solving on the course he would pursue in the years to 
come. 

I know that in all professions and occupations to which 
men can devote themselves, there is such a thing as com 
petition : and wherever there is competition, there will 
be the temptation to envy, jealousy, and detraction, as 
regards a man's competitors : and so there will be the 
need of that labour and exertion which lie in resolutely 
trampling that temptation down. You are quite certain, 
my friend, as you go on through life, to have to make up 
your mind to failure and disappointment on your own part, 
and to seeing other men preferred before you. When 
these things come, there are two ways of meeting them. 
One is, to hate and vilify those who surpass you, either 
in merit or in success : to detract from their merit and 
under-rate their success : or, if you must admit some 
merit, to bestow upon it very faint praise. Now, all this 
is natural enough ; but assuredly it is neither a right nor 
a happy course to follow. The other and- better way is, 
to fight these tendencies to the death : to struggle against 
them, to pray against them : to resign yourself to God's 
good will : to admire and love the man who beats you. 
This course is the right one, and the happy one. I 
believe the greatest blessing God can send a man, is dis- 
appointment, rightly met and used. There is no more 
ennobling discipline : there is no discipline that results in 
a happier or kindlier temper of mind. And in honestly 
fighting against the evil impulses which have been men- 



12 THE PARSON'S CHOICE 

tioned, you will assuredly get help and strength to van- 
quish them. I have seen the plain features look "beautiful, 
when man or woman was faithfully by God's grace re- 
sisting wrong feelings and tendencies, such as these. It 
is a noble end to attain, and it is well svorth all the labour 
it costs, to resolutely be resigned, cheerful, and kind, 
when you feel a strong inclination to be discontented, 
moody, and bitter of heart. Well said a very wise mor- 
tal, ' Better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh 
a city.' And that ruling of the spirit which is needful to 
rightly meet disappointment, brings out the best and 
noblest qualities that can be found in man. 

Sometimes, indeed, even in the parson's quiet life, he 
may know something of the first perplexity of which we 
have been thinking : the perplexity of the man who is 
struggling to make up his mind where he is to settle down 
for the remainder of life. And it is not long since such 
a perplexity came my way. For I had reached a spot in 
my onward path at which I must make a decided choice. 
I must go either to the right or the left : for, as Gold- 
smith has remarked with great foi'ce, when the road you 
are pursuing parts into several roads, you must be careful 
to follow only one. And I had to decide between country 
and town. I had to resolve whether I was to remain in 
that quiet cure of souls about which I formerly told you ; 
or go into the hard work and hurry of a large parish in 
a certain great city. 

1 had been for more than five years in that sweet coun- 
try place : it seemed a very long time as the days passed 
over. Even slow-growing ivy grew feet longer in that 
time, and climbing roses covered yards and yards of wall. 
And for very many months I thought that here I was to 
live and die, and never dreamt of change. Not indeed 



BETWEEN TOWN ANtr COUNTRY. 13 

that my tastes were always such. At the beginning of 
that term of years, when I went down each Sunday morn 
ing to preach in the plain little church to a handful of 
quiet rustic people, I used to think of a grand edifice 
where once upon a time, at my first start in my profes- 
sion, I had preached each afternoon for many months to a 
very large congregation of educated folk ; and I used to 
wonder whether my old friends remembered and missed 
me. Once there was to me a fascination about that grand 
church, and all connected with it : now it is to me no more 
than it is to every one else, and I pass near it almost 
every day and hardly look at it. Other men have taken 
my old piace in it, and had the like feelings, and got over 
them. Several of these men I never saw : how much I 
should like to shake each man's hand ! But all these 
faucies were long, long ago : I was pleased to be a coun- 
try parson, and to make the best of it. Friends, who 
have held like stations in life, have you not felt, now" and 
then, a little waking up of old ideas and aspirations ? All 
this, you thought, was not what you once had wished, and 
pictured to yourself. You vainly fancied, in your student 
days, that you might reach a more eminent place and 
greater usefulness. I know, indeed, that even such as 
have gone very unwillingly to a little remote country 
parish, have come most heartily to enjoy its peaceful life : 
have grown fond of that, as they never thought to do. I 
do not mean that you need affectedly talk, after a few 
months there, as if you had lived in the country all your 
life, and as if your thoughts had from childhood run upon 
horses, turnips, and corn. But in sober earnest, as weeks 
pass over, you gain a great interest in little country cares; 
and you discover that you may be abundantly useful, and 
abundantly laborious, amid a small and simple population. 



14 THE PARSON'S CHOICE 

Yet sometimes, my clever friend, I know you sit down 
on a green bank, under the trees, and look at your little 
church. You think of your companions and competitors 
in College days, filling distinguished places in life : and, 
more particularly, of this and that friend in your own 
calling, who preaches to as many people on one Sunday 
as you do in half a year. Fine fellows they were : and 
though you seldom meet now, you are sure they are faith- 
ful, laborious, able, and devoted ministers : God bless 
them all ! You wonder how they can do so much work ; 
and especially how they have confidence to preach to so 
large and intelligent congregations. For a certain timid- 
ity, and distrust of his own powers, grows upon the 
country parson. He is reaching the juster estimate of 
himself, indeed : yet there is something not desirable in 
the nervous dislike to preach in large churches and to 
cultivated people which is sure to come. And little 
things worry him, which would not worry a mind kept 
more upon the stretch. It is possible enough that among 
the Cumberland hills, or in curacies like Sydney Smith's 
on Salisbury Plain, or wandering sadly by the shore of 
Shetland fiords, there may be men who had in them the 
makings of eminent preachers ; but whose powers have 
never been called out, and are rusting sadly away : and in 
whom many petty cares are developing a pettiness of nature. 

I have observed that in thos'e advertisements which 
occasionally appear in certain newspapers, offering for 
sale the next presentation to some living in the Church, 
the advertiser, after pointing out the various advantages 
of the situation, frequently sums up by stating that the 
population of the parish is very small, and so the clergy- 
man's duty very light. I always read such a statement 
with great displeasure. For it seems to imply, that a 



BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 15 

clergyman's great object is, to enjoy his benefice and do 
as little duty as possible in return for it. I suppose it 
need not be proved, that if such were truly the great ob- 
ject of any parson, he has no business to be in the 
Church at aU. Failing health, or powers overdriven, 
may sometimes make even the parson whose heart is in 
his work desire a charge whose duty and responsibility 
are comparatively small : but I firmly believe that in the 
case of the great majority of clergymen, it is the interest 
and delight they feel in their work, and not its worldly 
emolument, that mainly attach them to their sacred pro- 
fession : and thus that the more work they have to do 
(provided their strength be equal to it), the more desir- 
able and interesting they hold their charge to be. And 
I believe that the earnest pastor, settled in some light 
and pleasant country charge, will oftentimes, even amid 
his simple enjoyment of that pleasant life, think that 
perhaps he would be more in the path of duty, if, while 
the best years of his life are passing on, he were placed 
where he might serve his Master in a larger sphere. 

And thinking now and then in this fashion, I was all 
of a sudden asked to undertake a charge such as would 
once have been my very ideal: and in that noble city 
where my work began, and so which has always been 
very dear. But I felt that everything was changed. 
Before these years of growing experience, I dare say I 
should not have feared to set myself even to work as 
hard ; but now I doubted greatly whether I should prove 
equal to it. That time in the country had made me sadly 
lose confidence. And I thought it would be very painful 
and discouraging to go to preach to a large congregation, 
and to see it Sunday by Sunday growing less, as people 
got discontented and dropped away. 



16 THE PARSON'S CHOICE 

But happily, those on whom I leant' for guidance and 
advice, were more hopeful than myself; and so I came 
away from my beautiful country parish. You know, my 
friends, who have passed through the like, the sorrow to 
look for the last time at each kind homely face : the sor- 
row to turn away from the little church where you have 
often preached to very small congregations : the sorrow 
to leave each tree you have planted, and the evergreens 
whose growth you have watched, year by year. Soon, 
you are in all the worry of what in Scotland we call a 
Jlitting : the house and all its belongings are turned up- 
side down. The kindness of the people comes out with 
tenfold strength when they know how soon you are to 
part. And some, to whom you had tried to do little fa- 
vours, and who had somewhat disappointed you by the 
slight sense of them they had shown, now testify by their 
tears a hearty regard which you never can forget. 

The Sunday comes when you enter your old pulpit for 
the last time. You had prepared your sermon in a room 
from which the carpet had been removed, and amid a 
general confusion and noise of packing. The church is 
crowded in a fashion never seen before. You go through 
the service, I think, with a sense of being somewhat 
stunned and bewildered. And in the closing sentences 
of your sermon, you say little of yourself; but in a few 
words, very hard to speak, you thank your old friends for 
their kindness to you through the years you have passed 
together ; and you give them your parting advice, in 
some sentence which seems to contain the essence of all 
you meant to teach in all these Sundays ; 'and you say 
farewell, farewell. 

You are happy, indeed, if after all, though quitting 
your country parsonage, and turning over a new leaf in 



BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 17 

life, you have not to make a change so entire as that 
from country to town generally is : if, like me, you live 
in the most beautiful city in Britain : a city where coun- 
try and town are blended together: where there are 
green gardens, fields, and trees : shady places into which 
you may turn from the glaring streets, into verdure as 
cool and quiet as ever, and wliere your little children 
can roll upon the grass, and string daisies as of old ; 
streets, from every opening in which you look out upon 
blue hills and blue sea. No doubt, the work is very 
liard, and very constant ; and each Sunday is a very ex- 
citing and exhausting day. You will understand, my 
friend, when you go to such a charge, what honour is 
due to those venerable men who have faithfully and 
efficiently done the duty of the like for thirty or forty 
years. You will look at them with much interest: you 
will receive their kindly counsel with great respect. 
You will feel it somewhat trying and nervous work to 
ascend your pulpit ; and to address men and women who 
in mental cultivation, and in things much more impor- 
tant, are more than equal to yourself. And as you walk 
down, always alone, to church each Sunday morning, 
you will very earnestly apply for strength and wisdom 
beyond your own, in a certain Quarter where they will 
never be bought in vain. Yet you will delight in all 
your duty : and you will thank God you feel that were 
your work in life to choose again, you would give your- 
self to the noblest task that can be undertaken by mor- 
tal, with a resolute purpose firmer a thousand times than 
even the enthusiastic preference of your early youth. 
The attention and sympathy with which your congrega- 
tion will listen to your sermons, will be a constant en- 
couragement and stimulus ; and you will find friends so 
2 



18 CHOICE BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

dear and true, that you will hope never to part from 
them while life remains. In such a life, indeed, these 
Essays, which never would have been begun had my 
duty been always such, must be written in little snatches 
of time : and perhaps a sharp critic could tell, from in- 
ternal evidence, which of them have been written in the 
country and which in the town. I look up from the table 
at which I write: and the roses, honeysuckle, and the 
fuchsias, of a year since, are far away : through the win- 
dow I discover lofty walls, whose colour inclines to black. 
Yet I have not regretted the day, and I do not believe 
I ever will regret the day, when I ceased to be a Coun- 
try Parson. 



CHAPTER IL 
CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT AND SUCCESS. 



^ US SET woods of Autumn, here you are 




once more ! I saw you, golden and brown, 
j,^^ in the afternoon sunshine to-day. Crisp 
;\SQi/5^ leaves were falling, as I went along the 
foot-path through the woods : crisp leaves lie upon the 
green graves in the churchyard, fallen from the ashes : 
and on the shrubbery walks, crisp leaves from the 
beeches, accumulated where the grass bounds the gravel, 
make a warm edging, irregular, but pleasant to see. It 
is not that one is * tired of summer : * but there is some- 
thing soothing and pleasing about the autumn days. 
There is a great clearness of the atmosphere sometimes ; 
sometimes a subdued, gray light is diffused everywhere. 
In the country, there is often, on these afternoons, a re- 
markable stillness in the air, amid which you can hear 
a withering leaf rustling down. I will not think that the 
time of bare branches and brown grass is so very near as 
yet ; Nature is indeed decaying, but now we have de- 
cay only in its beautiful stage, wherein it is pensive, but 
not sad. It is but early in October ; and we, who live 
in the country all through the winter, please ourselves 
with the belief that October is one of the finest months 
of the year, and that we have m.any warm, bright, still 



20 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

days yet before us. Of course we know we are practis- 
ing upon ourselves a cheerful, transparent delusion ; even 
as the man of forty-eight often declares that about forty- 
eight or fifty is the prime of life. I like to remember 
that Mrs. Hemans was describing October, when she 
began her beautiful poem on The Battle of Mo.garten^ 
by saying that, ' The wine-month shone in its golden 
prime : ' and I think that in these words the picture pr6»= 
sented to the mind of an untravelled Briton, is not the 
red grapes hanging in blushing profusion, but rather the 
brown, and crimson, and golden woods, in the warm Oc- 
tober sunshine. So, you russet woods of autumn, you 
are welcome once more ; welcome with all your peculiar 
beauty, so gently enjoyable by all men and women who 
have not used up life ; and with all your lessons, so un- 
obtrusive, so touching, that have come home to the heart 
of human generations for many thousands of years. Yes- 
terday was Sunday ; and I was preaching to my simple 
rustics an autumn sermon from the text We all do fade 
as a leaf. As I read out the text, through a half-opened 
window near me, two large withered oak-leaves silently 
floated into the little church in the view of all the con- 
gregation. I could not but pause for a minute till they 
should preach their sermon before I began mine. How 
simply, how unaffectedly, with what natural pathos they 
seemed to tell their story ! It seemed as if they said, 
Ah you human beings, something besides us is fading ; 
here we are, the things like which you fade ! 

And now, upon this evening, a little sobered by the 
thought that this is the fourth October which has seen 
this hand writing that which shall attain the author- 
ity of print, I sit down to begin an essay which is to be 
'fr'ittCLi leisurely as recreation and not as work. 1 need 



AND SUCCESS. 21 

not jSiiish this essay, unless I choose, for six weeks to 
come : so I have plenty of time, and I shall never have 
to write under pressure. That is pleasant. And I write 
under another feeling, more pleasing and encouraging 
still. I think that in these lines I am addressing many 
unknoAvn friends, who, though knowing nothing more of 
me than they can , learn from pages which I have writ- 
ten, have come gradually not to think of me as a stran- 
ger. I wish here to offer my thanks to many whose letters, 
though they were writing only to a shadow, have spoken 
in so kindly a fashion of the writer's slight productions, 
that they have given me much enjoyment in the read- 
ing, and much encouragement to go on. To all my 
correspondents, whether named or nameless, I now, in 
a moral sense, extend a friendly hand. As to the ques- 
tion sometimes put, who the writer is, that is of no 
consequence. But as to what he is, I think, intelligent 
readers of his essays, you will gradually and easily see 
that. 

It is a great thing to write leisurely, and with a gen- 
eral feeling of kindliness and satisfaction with every- 
body ; but there is a further reason why one should set 
to work at once. I feel I must write now, before my 
subject loses its interest; and before the multitude of 
thoughts, such as they are, which have been clustering 
round it since it presented itself this afternoon in that 
walk through the woods, have faded away. It is an un 
happy thing, but it is the fact with many men, that if 
you do not seize your fancies when they come to you, 
and preserve them upon the written page, you lose them- 
altogether. They go away, and never come back. A 
little while ago I pulled out a drawer in this table where- 
on I write • and I took ou*" of it a sheet of paper, on 



22 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

which there are written down various subjects for essays. 
Several are marked with a large cross ; these are the 
essays which are beyond the reach of fate : they are 
written and printed. Several others have no cross ; 
these are the subjects of essays which are yet to be writ- 
ten. But upon four of those subjects I look at once 
with interest and sorrow. I remember when I wrote 
down their names, what a vast amount, as I fancied, 1 
had to say about them: and all experience failed tc 
make me feel that unless those thoug-hts were seized and 
chronicled at once, they would go away and never come 
back again. How rich the subjects appeared to me, 1 
well remember! Now they are lifeless, stupid things, 
of which it is impossible to make anything. Before, 
they were like a hive, buzzing with millions of bees. 
Now they are like the empty hive, when the life and stir 
and bustle of the bees are gone. O friendly reader, 
what a loss it was to you, that the writer did not at once 
sit down and sketch out his essays, Concerning Tilings 
Slowly Learnt ; and Concerning Growing Old! And 
two other subjects of even greater value were. Concern- 
ing the Practical Effect of Illogical Reasons, and An Es- 
timate of the Practical Influence of False Assertions. 
How the hive was buzzing when these titles were writ- 
ten down : but now I really hardly remember anything 
of what I meant to say, and what I remember appears 
wretched stuff. The eifervescence has gone from the cham- 
pagne ; it is flat and dead. Still, it is possible that these 
subjects may recover their interest ; and the author hereby 
gives notice that he reserves the right of producing an 
essay upon each of them. Let no one else infringe his 
vested claims. 

There is one respect in which I have often thought. 



AND SUCCESS. 23 

that there is a curious absence of analogy between the 
moral and the material worlds. You are in a great ex- 
citement about something or other; you are immensely 
interested in reaching some aim ; you are extremely 
angry and ferocious at some piece of conduct ; let us 
suppose. Well, the result is that you cannot take a 
sound, clear, temperate view of the circumstances ; you 
cannot see the case rightly ; you actually do see it very 
wrongly. You wait till a week or a month passes ; till 
some distance, in short, intervenes between you and the 
matter; and then your excitement, your fever, your 
wrath, have gone down, as the matter has lost its fresh- 
ness ; and now you see the case calmly, you see it very 
differently indeed from the fashion in which you saw it 
first; you conclude that now you see it rightly. One 
can think temperately now of the atrocities of the mu- 
tineers in India. It does not now quicken your pulse 
to think of them. You have not now the burning de- 
sire you once felt, to take a Sepoy by the throat and 
cut him to pieces with a cat-of-nine-tails. The common 
consent of mankind has decided that you have now at- 
tained the right view. I ask, is it certain that in all 
cases the second thought is the best ; — is the right 
thought, as well as the calmest thought? Would it be 
just to say (which would be the material analogy) that 
you have the best view of some great rocky island when 
you have sailed away from it till it has turned to a blue 
cloud on the horizon ; rather than when its granite and 
Leather are full in view, close at hand ? I am not sure 
that in every case the calmer thought is the right thought, 
the distant view the right view. You have come to think 
indifferently of the personal injury, of tlie act of foul 
cruelty and falsehood, which once roused you to flam- 



24 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTJiIENT 

ing indignation. Are you thinking rightly too ? Or liaa 
not just such an illusion been practised upon your men- 
tal view, as is played upon your bodily eye when looking 
over ten miles of sea upon StafFa ? You do not see the 
basaltic columns now ; but that is because you see 
wrongly. You do not burn at the remembrance of the 
wicked lie, the crafty misrepresentation, the cruel blow •, 
()ut perhaps you ought to do so. And now (to speak of 
less grave matters) when all I had to say about Growing 
Old seems very poor, do I see it rightly ? Do I see it 
as my reader would always have seen it? Or has it 
faded into falsehood, as well as into distance and dim- 
ness ? When I look back, and see my thoughts as trash, 
is it because they are trash and no better? When 1 
look back, and see Ailsa as a cloud, is it because it is a 
cloud and nothing more ? Or is it, as I have already 
suggested, that in one respect the analogy between the 
moral and the material fails. 

I am going to write Concerning Disappointment and 
Success. In the days when I studied metaphysics, I 
should have objected to that title, inasmuch as the an- 
tithesis is imperfect between the two things named in it. 
Disappointment and Success are not properly antithetic ; 
Failure and. Success are. Disappointment is the feeling 
caused by failure, and caused also by other things besides 
failure. Failure is the thing ; disappointment is the feel- 
ing caused by the thing; while success is the thing, and 
not the feeling. But such minute points apart, the title 
I have chosen brings out best the subject about which 
I wish to write. And a very wide subject it is ; and 
one of universal interest. 

I suppose that no one will dispute the fact that in this 
world there are such things as disappointment and success. 



AND SUCCESS. 25 

I do not mean merely that each man's lot has its share of 
both ; I mean that there are some men whose life on the 
whole is a failure, and that there are others whose life on 
Ihe whole is a success. You and I, mj reader, know bet- 
ter than to think that life is a lottery ; but those who 
think it a lottery, must see that there are human beings 
who draw the prizes, and others who draw the blanks. 1 
believe in Luck, and 111 Luck, as facts ; of course I do 
not believe the theory which common consent builds upon 
these facts. There is, of course, no such thing as chance ; 
this world is driven with far too tight a rein to permit of 
anything whatsoever falling out in a way properly for- 
tuitous. But it cannot be denied that there are persona 
with whom everything goes well, and other persons with 
whom everything goes ill. There are people who inva- 
riably win at what are called games of chance. There 
are people who invariably lose. You remember when 
Sydney Smith lay on his deathbed, how he suddenly 
startled the watchers by it, by breaking a long silence 
with a sentence from one of his sermons, repeated in a 
deep, solemn voice, strange from the dying man. His 
life had been successful at last ; but success had come 
late ; and how much of disappointment he had known ! 
And though he had tried to bear up cheerily under his 
early cares, they had sunk in deep. ' We speak of life 
as a journey,' he said, * but how differently is that journey 
performed ! Some are borne along their path in luxury 
and ease ; while some must walk it with naked feet, man- 
gled and bleeding.' 

AVho is there that does not sometimes, on a quiet even- 
ing, even before he has attained to middle age, sit down 
and look back upon his college days, and his college 
fi-icnds : and think sadly of the failures, the disappoint* 



26 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

ments, the broken hearts, which have been among those 
who all started fair and promised well? How very much 
has after life changed the estimates which we formed in 
those days, of the intellectual mark and probable fate of 
one's friends and acquaintances ! You remember the 
dense, stolid dunces of that time : you remember the men 
•who sat next you in the lecture-room, and never answered 
rightly a question that was put to them : you remember 
liow you used to wonder if- they would always be the" 
dunces they were then. Well, I never knew a man who 
was a dunce at twenty, to prove what might be called a 
brilliant or even a clever man in after life ; but we have 
all known such do wonderfully decently. You did not 
expect much of them, you see. You did not try them by 
an exacting standard. If a monkey were to write his 
name, you would be so much surprised at seeing him do 
it at all, that you would never think of being surprised 
that he did not do it very well. So, if a man you knew 
as a remarkably stupid fellow preaches a decent sermon, 
you hardly think of remarking that it is very common- 
place and dull, you are so much pleased and surprised to 
find that the man can preach at all. And then, the 
dunces of college days are often sensible, though slow • 
and in this world, plain plodding common sense is very 
likely in the long run to beat erratic brilliancy. The 
tortoise passes the hare. I owe an apology to Lord 
Campbell for even naming him on the same page on 
which stands the name of dunce : for assuredly in shrewd 
massive sense, as well as in kindness of manner, the nat- 
ural outflow of a kind and good heart, no judge ever sur- 
passed him. But I may fairly point to his career of 
unctxampled success as an instance which proves my prin- 
ciple. See how that man of parts which are sound and 



AND SUCCESS. 27 

eolid, rather than brilliant or showy, has won the Derby 
and the St. Ledo^er of the law : has filled with hio;h credit 
the places of Chief Justice of England and Lord Chan- 
cellor. And contrast his eminently successful and useful 
course with that of the fitful meteor, Lord Brougham, 
What a great, dazzling genius Brougham unquestionably 
is ; yet his greatest admirer must admit that his life haa 
been a brilliant failure. But while you, thoughtful 
reader, in such a retrospect as I have been supposing, 
sometimes wonder at the decent and reasonable success 
of the dunce, do you not often lament over the fashion in 
which those who promised well, and even brilliantly, have 
disappointed the hopes entertained of them? What 
miserable failures such have not unfrequently made ! 
And not always through bad conduct either : not always, 
though sometimes, by taking to vicious courses ; but 
rather by a certain want of tact and sense, or even by 
just somehow missing the favourable tide. You have 
got a fair living and a fair standing in the Church ; yon 
have held them for eight or ten years ; when some even- 
ing as you are sitting in your study or playing with your 
children, a servant tells you, doubtfully, that a man is 
waiting to see you. A poor, thin, shabbily-dressed fellow 
comes in, and in faltering tones begs for the lean of five 
Bhillings. Ah, with what a start you recognise him ! It 
is the clever fellow whom you hardly beat at college, who 
was always so lively and merry, who sang so nicely, and 
was so. much asked out into society. You had lost sight cf 
him for several years ; and now here he is, shabby, dirty, 
smelling of whisky, with bloated face and trembling hand: 
alas, alas, ruined ! Oh, do not give him up. Perhaps 
you can do something for him. Little kindness he has 
known for veiy long. Give him the five shillings by all 



28 CONCERNIXG DISAPPOINTMENT 

means ; but next morning see you go out, and try what 
may be done to lift him out of the slough of despond, 
and to give him a chance for better days ! I know that 
it may be all in vain ; and that after years gradually 
darkening down you may some day, as you pass the po- 
lice-office, find a crowd at the door, and learn that they 
have got the corpse of the poor suicide within. And 
even when the failure is not so utter as this, you find, 
now and then, as life goes onward, that this and that old 
acquaintance has, you cannot say how, stepped out of 
the track, and is stranded.' He went into the Church : 
he is no worse preacher or scholar than many that suc- 
ceed ; but somehow he never gets a living. You some- 
times meet him in the street, threadbare and soured : he 
probably passes you without recognising you. O reader, 
to whom God has sent moderate success, always be chiv- 
alrously kind and considerate to such a disappointed man ! 
I have heard of an eminent man who, when well ad- 
vanced in years, was able to say that through all his life 
lie had never set his mind on anything which he did not 
succeed in attaining. Great and little aims alike, he 
never had known what it was to fail. What a curious 
state of feeling it would be to most men to know them- 
selves able to assert so much ! Think of a mind in which 
disappointment is a thing unknown ! I think that one 
would be oppressed by a vague sense of fear in regarding 
one's self as treated by Providence in a fashion so dif- 
ferent from the vast majority of the race. It cannot be 
denied that there are men in this world in whose lot fail- 
ure seems to be the rule. Everything to which they put 
their hand breaks down or goes amiss. But most human 
beings can testify that their lot, like their abilities, their 
stature, is a sort of middling thing. There is about it an 



AND SUCCESS. 29 

equable sobriety, a sort of average endurableness. Some 
things go well : some things go ill. There is a modicum 
of disappointment: there is a modicum of success. But 
so much of disappointment comes to the lot of almost all, 
that there is no object in nature at which we all look with 
so much interest as the invariably lucky man — the man 
whom all this system of things appears to favour. You 
knew such a one at school : you knew him at college . 
you knew him at the bar, in the Church, in medicine, in 
politics, in society. Somehow he pushes his way : things 
turn up just at the right time for him : great people take 
a fancy to him : the newspapers cry him up. Let us 
hope that you do not look at him with any feeling of 
envy or bitterness ; but you cannot help looking at him 
with great interest, he is so like yourself, and at the same 
time so very unlike you. Philosophers tell us that real 
happiness is very equally distributed ; but there is no 
doubt that there is a tremendous external difference be- 
tween the man who lives in a grand house, with every 
appliance of elegance and luxury, with plump servants, 
fine horses, many carriages, and the poor struggling gen- 
tleman, perhaps a married curate, whose dwelling is bare, 
whose dress is poor, whose fare is scanty, whose wife is 
careworn, whose children are ill-fed, shabbily dressed, 
and scantily educated. It is conceivable that fanciful 
wants, slights, and failures, may cause the rich man as 
much and as real suffering as substantial wants and fail- 
ures cause the poor ; but the world at large will recog- 
nise the rich man's lot as one of success, and the poor 
man's as one of failure. 

This is a world of competition. It is a world full of 
'hings that many people wish to get, and that all can- 
not get at once ; and to say this is much as to say thai 



30 CONCEENING DISAPPOINTMENT 

this is a world of failure and disappointments. All 
things desirable, by their very existence imply the dis- 
appointment of some. When you, my reader, being no 
longer young, look with a philosophic eye at some pretty 
girl entering a drawing-room, you cannot but reflect, as 
you survey the pleasing picture, and more especially 
when you think of the twenty thousand pounds — Ah 
my gentle young friend, you will some day make one 
heart very jolly, but a great many more extremely en- 
vious, wrathful, and disappointed. So with all other de- 
sirable things; so with a large Hving in the Church ; so 
with any place of dignity ; so with a seat on the bench ; 
so with the bishopric ; so with the woolsack ; so with the 
towers of Lambeth. So with smaller matters ; so with 
a good business in the greengrocery line ; so with a well- 
paying milk- walk ; so with a clerk's situation of eighty 
pounds a year ; so with an errand boy's place at three 
shillings a week, which- thirty candidates want, and only 
one can get. Alas for our fallen race ! Is it not part, 
at least, of some men's pleasure in gaining some object 
which has been generally sought for, to think of the 
«iortification of the poor fellows that failed ? 

Disappointment, in short, may come and must come 
wherever man can set his wishes and his hopes. The 
!>nly way not to be disappointed when a thing turns out 
4gainst you, is not to have really cared how the thing 
ivent. It is not a truism to remark that this is impossi- 
ble if you did care. Of course you are not disappointed 
at failing of attaining an end which you did not care 
whether you attained or not ; but men seek very few 
such ends. If a man has worked day and night for six 
weeks in canvassing his county, and then, having been 
^gnominiously beaten, on the following day tells you he 



AND SUCCESS. 31 

is not in the least degree disappointed, he might just as 
truly assure jou, if you met him walking up streaming 
with ^^ ater from a river into which he had just fallen, 
that he is not the least wet. No doubt there is an elas- 
ticity in the healthy mind w^hich very soon tides it over 
even a severe disappointment ; and no doubt the grapes 
which are unattainable do sometimes in actual fact tarn 
gour. But let no man tell us that he has not known the 
bitterness of disappointment for at least a brief space, 
if he have ever from his birth tried to get anything, great 
or small, and yet not got it. Failure is indeed a thing 
of all degrees, from the most fanciful to the most weighty : 
disappointment is a thing of all degrees, from the tran- 
sient feeling that worries for a minute, to the great 
crushing blow that breaks the mind's spring for ever. 
Failure is a fact which reaches from the poor tramp who 
lies down by the wayside to die, up to the man who is 
only made Chief Justice when he wanted the Chancel- 
lorship, or who dies Bishop of London when he had set 
his heart upon being Archbishop of Canterbury ; or to 
the Prime Minister, unrivalled in eloquence, in influ- 
ence, in genius, with his fair domains and his proud de- 
scent, but whose horse is beaten after being first favourite 
for the Derby. Who shall say that either disappointed 
man felt less bitterness and weariness of heart than the 
other? Each was no more than disappointed; and the 
keenness of disappointment bears no proportion to the 
reality of the value of the object whose loss caused it. 
And what endless crowds of human beings, children and 
old men, nobles and snobs, rich men and poor, know the 
bitterness of disappointment from day to day. It begina 
from the child shedding many tears when the toy bought 
with the long-hoarded pence is broken the first day it 



32 CONCERNING DISArPOINTMENT 

comes home ; it goes on to the Duke expectmg the Gar- 
ter, who sees in the newspaper at breakfast that the 
yards of blue ribbon have been given to another. What 
a hard time his servants have that day. How loudly he 
roars at them, how willingly would he kick them ! Little 
recks he that forenoon of his magnificent castle and his 
mcestral woods. It may here be mentioned that a veiy 
pleasing opportunity is afforded to malignant people fcr 
mortifying a clever, ambitious man, when any office is 
vacant to which it is known he aspires. A judge of the 
Queen s Bench has died : you, Mr, Verjuice, know how 
Mr. Swetter, Q. C, has been rising at the bar ; you 
know how well he deserves the ermine. Well, walk 
down to his chambers ; go in and sit down ; never mind 
how busy he is — your time is of no value — and talk 
of many different men as extremely suitable for the va- 
cant seat on the bench, but never in the remotest manner 
hint at the claims of Swetter himself. I have often seen 
the like done. And -you, Mr. Verjuice, may conclude 
almost with certainty that in doing all this you are vex- 
ing and mortifying a deserving man. And such a con- 
sideration will no doubt be compensation sufficient to your 
amiable nature for the fact that every generous muscular 
Christian would like to take you by the neck, and swing 
your sneaking carcase out of the window. 

Even a slight disappointment, speedily to be repaired, 
Las in it something that jars painfully the mechanism of 
the mind. You go to the train, expecting a friend, cer- 
tainly. He does not come. Now this worries you, even 
though you receive at the station a telegraphic message 
that he will be by the ti-ain which follows in two hours. 
Your magazine fails to come by post on the last day of 
the month ; you have a dull, vague sense of something 



AND SUCCESS. 33 

wanting for an hour or two, even though you are sure 
that you will have it next morning. And indeed a very 
large share of the disappointments of civilized life are 
associated with the post-office. I do not suppose the ex- 
treme case of the poor fellow who calls at the office ex- 
pecting a letter containing the money without which he 
cannot see how he is to get through the day ; nor of the 
man who finds no letter on the day when he expects to 
hear how it fares with a dear relative who is desperately 
sick. I am thinking merely of the lesser disappointments 
which commonly attend post-time : the Times not coming 
when you were counting with more than ordinary certain- 
ty on its appearing ; the letter of no great consequence, 
which yet you would have liked to have had. A certain 
blankness — a feeling difficult to define — attends even 
the slightest disappointment ; and the effect of a great 
one is very stunning and embittering indeed. You re- 
member how the nobleman in Ten Thousand a Year, 
who had been refused a seat in the Cabinet, sympathized 
with poor Titmouse's exclamation when, looking at the 
manifestations of gay life in Hyde-park, and feeling his 
own absolute exclusion from it, he consigned everything 
to perdition. All the ballads of Professor Aytoun and 
Mr. Theodore Martin are admirable, but there is none 
which strikes me as more so than the brilliant imitation 
of Lochsley Hall. And how true to nature the state of 
mind ascribed to the vulgar snob who is the hero of the 
ballad, who, bethinking himself of his great disappoint- 
ment when his cousin married somebody else, bestowed his 
extrerpest objurgations upon all who had abetted the hate- 
ful result, and then summed up thus comprehensively : — 

Cursed be the foul apprentice, who his loathsome fees did earn; 
Curaed be the clerk and parson ; cursed be the whole co^^cern I 
3 



34 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

It may be mentioned here as a fact to wliich experience 
will testify, that such disappointments as that at the rail- 
way station and the post-ofRce are most likely to come 
wl^en you are counting with absolute certfinty upon 
things happening as you wish ; when not a misc»iving has 
entered your mind as to your friend's arriving or your 
letter coming. A little latent fear in your soul that you 
may possibly be disappointed, seems to have a certain 
power to fend off disappointment, on the same principle 
on which taking out an umbrella is found to prevent rain. 
What you are prepared for rarely happens. The precise 
thing you expected comes not once in a thousand times. 
A confused state of mind results from long experience of 
such cases. Your real feeling often is : Such a thing 
seems quite sure to happen ; I may say I expect it to 
happen ; and yet I don't expect it, because I do : for ex- 
perience has taught me that the precise thing which I ex- 
pect, which I think most likely, hardly ever comes. I am 
not prepared to side with a thoughtless world, which is 
ready to laugh at the confused statement of the Irishman 
who had killed his pig. It is not a bull ; it is a great 
psychological fact that is involved in his seemingly con- 
tradictory declaration — ' It did not weigh as much as I 
expected, and I never thought it would ! ' 

When young ladies tell us that such and such a persou 
has met with a disappointment,' we all understand what 
is meant. The phrase, though it is conventionally intel- 
ligible enough, involves a fallacy : it seems to teach that 
the disappointment of the youthful heart in the matter of 
that which in its day is no doubt the most powerful of all 
the affections, is by emphasis the greatest disappointment 
which a human being can ever know. Of course that is 



AND SUCCESS. 35 

an entire mistake. People get over that disappointment* 
not but what it may leave its trace, and possibly colour 
the whole of remaining life ; sometimes resulting in an 
unlovely bitterness and hardness of nature ; sometimes 
prolonging even into age a lingering thread of old ro- 
mance, and keeping a kindly corner in a heart which 
worldly cares have in great measure deadened. But the 
disappointment which has its seat in the affections is out- 
grown as the affections themselves are outgrown, as the 
season of their predominance passes away ; and the dis- 
appointment which sinks the deepest and lasts the longest 
of all the disappointments which are fanciful rather than 
material, is that which reaches a man through his ambi- 
tion and his self-love, — principles in his nature which 
outlast the heyday of the heart's supremacy, and which 
endure to man's latest years. The bitter and the endur- 
ing disappointment to most human beings is that which 
makes them feel, in one way or other, that they are less 
wise, clever, popular, graceful, accomplished, tall, active, 
and in short fine, than they had fancied themselves to be. 
But it is only to a limited portion of human kind that 
such words as disappointment and success are mainly .sug- 
gestive of gratified or disappointed ambition, of happy or 
blighted affection ; to the great majority they are sugges- 
tive rather of success or non-success in earnino- bread and 
cheese, in finding money to pay the rent, in generally 
making the ends meet. You are very young, my reader, 
and little versed in the practical affairs of ordinary life, 
if you do not know that such prosaic matters make to 
most men the great aim of their being here, so far as 
that aim is bounded by this world's horizon. The poor 
cabman is successful or is disappointed, according as he 
sees, while the hours of the day are passing over, that he 



36 COXCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

is making up or not making up the shillings he must hand 
over to his master at night, before he has a penny to get 
food for his wife and children. The little tradesman is 
successful or the reverse, according as he sees or does not 
see from week to week such a small accumulation of petty 
profits as may pay his landlord, and leave a little margin 
by help of which he and his family may struggle on. And 
many an educated man knows the analogous feelings. 
The poor barrister, as he waits for the briefs which come 
in so slowly — the young doctor, hoping for patients — 
understand them all. Oh what slight, fanciful things, to 
such men, appear such disappointments as that of the 
wealthy proprietor who fails to carry his county, or the 
rich mayor or provost who fails of being knighted ! 

There is an extraordinary arbitrariness about the way 
in which great success is allotted in this world. Who 
shall say that in one case out of every two, relative suc- 
cess is in proportion to relative merit ? Nor need this 
be said in anything of a grumbling or captious spirit. 
It is but repeating what a very v/ise man said long ago, 
that * the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to 
the strong.' I suppose no one will say that the bish- 
ops are the greatest men in the Church of England, or 
that every Chief Justice is a greater man than every 
puisne judge. Success is especially arbitrary in cases 
where it goes by pure patronage : in many such cases 
the patron would smile at your weakness if you fancied 
that the desire to find the best man ever entered his 
head. In the matter of the bench and bar, where tangi- 
ble duties are to be performed, a patron is compelled to 
a certain amount of decency ; for, though he may not 
pretend to seek for the fittest man, he must at least pro- 



AND SUCCESS. 37 

tess to have sought a fit man. No prime minister dare 
ai:»point a blockhead a jndge, without at least denying 
loudly that he is a blockhead. But the arbitrariness 
of success is frequently the result of causes quite apart 
from any arbitrariness in the intention of the human dis- 
poser of success ; a Higher Hand seems to come ia 
here. The tide of events settles the matter: the arbi- 
trariness is in the way in which the tide of events sets. 
Think of that great lawyer and great man, Sir Samuel 
Romilly. Through years of his practice at the bar, he 
himself, and all who knew him, looked to the woolsack 
as his certain destination. You remember the many en- 
tries in his diary bearing upon the matter ; and I suppose 
the opinion of the most competent was clear as to his 
unrivalled fitness for the post. Yet all ended in nothing. 
The race was not to the swift. The first favourite was 
beaten, and more than one outsider has carried off the 
prize for which he strove in vain. Did any mortal ever 
dream, during his days of mediocrity at the bar, or his 
time of respectability as a Baron of the Exchequer, that 
Sir R. M. Rolfe was the future Chancellor ? Probably 
there is no sphere in which there is more of disappoint- 
ment and heartburning than the army. It must be su- 
premely mortifying to a grey-headed veteran, who has 
served his country for forty years, to find a beardless 
Guardsman put over his head into the command of his 
regiment, and to see honours and emoluments showered 
upon that fair-weather colonel. And I should judge that 
the despatch written by a General after an important 
battle must be a source of sad disappointment to many 
who fancied that their names might well be mentioned 
there. But after all, I do not know but that it tends to 
'lessen disappointment, that success should be regarded as 



38 COECERNmG DISAPPOINTMENT 

going less by merit than by influence or good luck. The 
disappointed man can always soothe himself with the 
fancy that he deserved to succeed. It would be a des- 
perately mortifying thing to the majority of mankind, if 
it were distinctly ascertained that each man gets just 
what he deserves. The admitted fact that the square 
man is sometimes put in the round hole, is a cause of 
considerable consolation to all disappointed men, and to 
their parents, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers. 

No stronger proof can be adduced of the little corre- 
spondence that often exists between success and merit, 
than the fact that the self-same man, by the exercise of 
the self-same powers, may at one time starve and at an- 
other drive his carriage and four. When poor Edmund 
Kean was acting in barns to country bumpkins, and barely 
finding bread for his wife and child, he was just as great 
a genius as when he was crowding Drury Lane. When 
Brougham presided in the House of Lords, he was not a 
bit better or greater than when he had hung about in 
the Parliament House at Edinburgh, a briefless and 
suspected junior barrister. When all London crowded 
to see the hippopotamus, he was just the animal that 
he was a couple of years later, when no one took the 
trouble of looking at him. And when George Stephen- 
son died, amid the applause and gratitude of all the intel- 
ligent men in Britain, he was the same man, maintaining 
the same principle, as when men of science and of law 
regarded as a mischievous lunatic the individual who 
declared that some day the railroad would be the king's 
highway, and mail-coaches would be drawn by steam. 

As to the very highest prizes of human affairs, it is, 
I believe, admitted on all hands, that these generally fall 
to second-rate men. Civilized nations have found it 



AND SUCCESS. 39 

convenient entirely to give up the hallucination that the 
monarch is the greatest, wisest, and best man in his do- 
minions. Nobody supposes that. And in the case of 
hereditary dynasties, such an end is not even aimed at. 
But it is curious to find how with elective sovereignties 
it is just the same way. The great statesmen of Ameri- 
ca have very rarely attained to the dignity of President 
of the United States. Not Clays and Websters have 
had their four years at the White House. And even 
Cardinal Wiseman candidly tells us that the post which 
is regarded by millions as the highest which can be held 
by mortal, is all but systematically given to judicious 
mediocrity. A great genius will never be Pope. The coach 
must not be trusted to too dashing a charioteer. Give us 
the safe and steady man. Everybody knows that the 
same usage applies to the Primacy in England. Bishops 
must be sensible ; but archbishops are by some regarded 
with suspicion if they have ever committed themselves to 
sentiments more startling than that two and two make four. 
Let me suppose, my reader, that you have met with 
great success : I mean success which is very great in 
your own especial field. The lists are just put out, and 
you are senior wrangler ; or you have got the gold medal 
in some country grammar-school. The feeling in both 
cases is the same. In each cast there combines with the 
exultant emotion, an intellectual conception that you are 
one of the greatest of the human race. Well, was not 
the feeling a strange one ? Did you not feel somewhat 
afraid ? It seemed too much. Something was sure to 
come, you thought, that would take you down. Few are 
burdened with such a feeling; but surely there is some- 
thing alarming in great success. You were a barber's 
boy : you are made a peer. Surely you must go through 



40 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

life with an ever-recurring emotion of surprise at finding 
yourself where you are. It must be curious to occupy a 
place whence you look down upon the heads of most of 
your kind. A duke gets accustomed to it ; but surely 
even he must sometimes wonder how he comes to be 
placed so many degrees above multitudes who deserve as 
w-ell. Or do such come to fancy that their merit is equal 
to their success ; and that by as much as they are better 
off than other men, they are better than other men ? 
Very likely they do. It is all in human nature. And I 
suppose the times have been in which it would have been 
treasonable to hint that a man with a hundred thousand 
pounds a year was not at least two thousand times as 
good as one with fifty. 

The writer always feels a peculiar sympathy with fail- 
ure, and with people who are suffering from disappoint- 
ment, great or small. It is not that he himself is a 
disappointed man. No ; he has to confess, with deep 
thankfulness, that his success has far, very far, tran- 
scended his deserts. And, like many other men, he haa 
found that one or two events in his life, which seemed 
disappointments at the time, were in truth great and 
signal blessings. Still, every one has known enough of 
the blank, desolate feeling of disappointment, to sympa- 
thize keenly with the disappointments of others. I feel 
deeply for the poor Punch and Judy man, simulating 
great excitement in the presence of a small, uninterested 
group, from which people keep dropping away. I feel 
for the poor barn-actor, who discovers, on his first en- 
trance upon his rude stage, that the magnates of the dis- 
trict, who promised to be present at the performance, 
have not come. You have gone to see a panorama, or 
to hear a lecture on phrenology. Did you not feel for 



AND SUCCESS. 41 

(Ue poor fellow, the lecturer or exhibitor, whcin no came 
in, ten minutes past the hour, and found little but empty 
benches ? Did you not see what a chill fell upon him : 
how stupified he seemed : in short, how much disap- 
pointed he was ? And if the money he had hoped to 
earn that evening was to pay the lodgings in which he 
and his wife were staying, you may be sure there was a 
heart sickness about his disappointment far beyond the 
mortification of mere self-love. When a rainy day stops 
a pic-nic, or mars the enjoyment of it, although the dis- 
appointment is hardly a serious one, still it is sure to 
cause so much real suffering, that only rancorous old 
ladies will rejoice in the fact. It is curious how men 
who have known disappointment themselves, and who 
describe it well, seem to like to paint lives which in the 
meantime are all hope and success. There is Mr. Thack- 
eray. With what sympathy, with what enjoyment, he 
shows us the healthy, wealthy, hopeful youths, like Clive 
Newcome, or young Pendennis, when it was all sunshine 
around the young prince ! And yet how sad a picture 
of life he gives us in The Newcomes. It would not have 
done to make it otherwise : it is true, though sad : that 
history of the good and gallant gentleman, whose life 
was a long disappointment, a long failure in all on which 
he had set his heart ; in his early love, in his ambitious 
plans for his son, even in his hopes for his son's happi- 
ness, in his own schemes of fortune, till that life of hon- 
our ended in the almshouse at last. How the reader 
wishes that the author would make brighter days dawn 
«pon his hero ! But the author cannot : he must hold 
on unflinchingly as fate. In such a story as his, truth 
can no more be sacrificed to our wishes than in real life 
we know it to be. Well, all disappointment is discipline; 



42 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

and received in a right spirit, it may prepare us for bet- 
ter things elsewhere. It has been said that heaven is a 
place for those who failed on earth. The greatest hero 
is perhaps the man who does his very best, and signally 
fails, and still is not embittered by the failure. And 
looking at the fashion in which an unseen Power permits 
wealth and rank and influence to go sometimes in this 
world, we are possibly justified in concluding that in His 
judgment the prizes of this Vanity Fair are held as of 
no great account. A life here, in which you fail of every 
end you seek, yet which disciplines you for a better, is 
assuredly not a failure. 

"What a blessing it would be, if men's ambition were 
in every case made to keep pace with their ability. Very 
mijch disappointment arises from a man's having an ab- 
surd over-estimate of his own powers, which leads him, 
to use an expressive Scotticism, to even himself to some 
position for which he is utterly unfit, and which he has 
no chance at all of reaching. A lad comes to the uni- 
versity who has been regarded in his own family as a 
great genius, and who has even distinguished himself at 
some little country school. What a rude shock to the 
poor fellow's estimate of himself; what a smashing of the 
hopes of those at home, is sure to come when he measures 
his length with his superiors ; and is compelled, as is fre- 
quently the case, to take a third or fourth-rate position. 
If you ever read the lives of actors (and every one 
ought, for they show you a new and curious phase of 
life), you must have smiled to see the ill-spelled, ungram- 
matical letters in which some poor fellow writes to a Lon- 
don manager for an engagement, and declares that he 
^els with'n him the makings of a greater actor than 



AND SUCCESS. 43 

Garrick or Kean. How many young men who go into 
the Church fancy that they are to surpass Melvill or 
Chalmers ! No doubt, reader, you have sometimes come 
out of a church, where you had heard a preacher aiming 
at the most ambitious eloquence, Avho evidently had not 
the slightest vocation that way ; and you have thought it 
would be well if no man ever wished to be eloquent who 
had it not in him to be so. Would that the principle 
were universally true ! Who has not sometimes been 
amused in passing along the fashionable street of a. great 
city, to see a little vulgar snob dressed out within an inch 
of his life, walking along, evidently fancying that he 
looks like a gentleman, and that he is the admired of all 
admirers ? Sometimes, in a certain street which I might 
name, I have witnessed such a spectacle, sometimes with 
amusement, oftener with sorrow and pity, as I thought of 
the fearful, dark surmises which must often cross the 
poor snob's mind, that he is failing in his anxious endeav- 
ours. Occasionally, too, I have beheld a man bestriding 
a horse in that peculiar fashion which may be described 
as his being on the outside of the animal, slipping away 
over the hot stones, possibly at a trot, and fancying 
i^though with many suspicions to the contrary) that he is 
witching the world with noble horsemanship. What a 
pity that such poor fellows will persist in aiming at what 
they cannot achieve ! What mortification and disappoint- 
ment they must often know ! The horse backs on to the 
pavement, into a plate-glass window, just as Maria, for 
■whose sake the poor screw was hired, is passing by. The 
boys halloo in derision ; and some ostler, helpful, but not 
complimentary, extricates the rider, and says, ' I see you 
have never been on 'ossback before ; you should not have 
pulled the curb-bit that way ! ' And when the vulgar 



44 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

dandy, strutting along, with his Brummagem jewellery 
his choking collar, and his awfully tight boots which cause 
him agony, meets the true gentleman, how it rushes upon 
him that he himself is only a humbug ! How the poor 
fellow's heart sinks ! 

Turning from such inferior fields of ambition as these, 
I think how often it happens that men come to some 
sphere in life with a flourish of trumpets, as destined to 
do great things, and then fail. There is a modest, quiet 
self-confidence, without which you will hardly get on in 
this world ; but I believe, as a general rule, that the men 
who have ' attained to very great success have started 
with very moderate expectations. Their first aim was 
lowly ; and the way gradually opened before them. 
Their ambition, like their success, went on step by step ; 
they did not go at the top of the tree at once. It would 
be easy to mention instances in which those who started 
with high pretensions have been taught by stern fact to 
moderate them ; in which the man who came over from 
the Irish bar intending to lead the Queen's Bench, and 
become a Chief Justice, was glad, after thirty years of 
disappointment, to get made a County Court judge. Not 
that this is always so; sometimes pretension, if big 
enough, secures success. A man setting up as a silk- 
mercer in a strange town, is much likelier to succeed if 
he opens a huge shop, painted in flaring colours and 
puffed by enormous bills and vast advertising vans, than 
if he set up in a modest way, in something like pro- 
portion to his means. And if he succeeds, well ; if he 
fails, his creditors bear the loss. A great field has been 
opened for the disappointment of men who start with the 
flourish of trumpets already mentioned, by the growing 
system of competitive examinations. By these, your 



AND SUCCESS. 45 

own opinion of yourself, and the home opinion of you, 
are brought to a severe test. I think with sympathy of 
the disappointment of poor lads who hang on week after 
week, hoping to hear that they have succeeded in gaining 
the coveted appointment, and then learn that they have 
failed. I think with sympathy of their poor parents. 
Even when the prize lost is not substantial pudding, but 
only airy praise, it is a bitter thing to lose it, after run- 
ning the winner close. It must be a supremely irritating 
and mortifying thing to be second wrangler. Look at the 
rows of young fellows, sitting with their papers before 
them at a Civil Service Examination, and think what 
interest and what hopes are centred on every one of 
them. Think how many count on great success, kept up 
to do so by the estimation in which they are held at home. 
Their sisters and their mothers think them equal to any- 
thing. Sometimes justly ; sometimes the fact justifies 
the anticipation. When Baron Alderson went to Cam- 
bridge, he tells us that he would have spurned the offer 
of being second man of his year ; and sure enough, he 
was out of sight the first. But for one man of whom 
the home estimation is no more than just, there are ten 
thousand in whose case, to strangers, it appears simply 
preposterous. 

There is one sense in which all after-life may be said 
to be a disappointment. It is far different from that 
which it was pictured by early anticipations and hopes. 
The very greatest material success still leaves the case 
thus. And no doubt it seems strange to many to look 
back on the fancies of youth, which experience has so- 
bered down. When you go back, my reader, to the 
village where you were brought up, don't you remember 



46 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

how you used to fancy that when you were a man you 
would come to it in your carriage and four ? This, it 
is unnecessary to add, you have not yet done. You 
thought likewise that when you came back you would 
be arrayed in a scarlet coat, possibly in a cuirass of 
steel; whereas in fact you have come to the little inn 
where nobody knows you to spend the night, and you 
are wandering along the bank of the river (how little 
changed !) in a shooting-jacket of shepherd's plaid. You 
intended to marry the village grocer's pretty daughter ; 
and for that intention probably you were somewhat hasti- 
ly dismissed to a school a hundred miles off; but this 
evening as you passed the shop you discovered her, a 
plump matron, calling to her children in a voice rather 
shrill than sweet ; and you discovered from the altered 
sign above the door that her father is dead, and that she 
has married the shopman, your hated rival of former 
years. And yet how happily the wind is tempered to 
the shorn lamb ! You are not the least mortified. You 
are much amused that your youthful fancies have been 
blighted. It would have been fearful to have married 
that excellent individual; the shooting-jacket is greatly 
more comfortable than the coat of mail ; and as for the 
carriage and four, why, even if you could afford them, 
you would seldom choose to drive four horses. And it 
is so with the more substantial anticipations of maturer 
years. The man who, as already mentioned, intended 
to be a Chief Justice, is quite happy when he is made a 
County Court judge. The man who intended to eclipse 
Mr. Dickens in the arts of popular authorship is content 
and proud to be the great writer of the London Journal, 
The clergyman who would have liked a grand cathedral 
like York Minster is perfectly pleased with his little 



AND SUCCESS. 47 

country church, ivy-green and grey. "We come, if we 
are sensible folk, to be content with what we can get, 
though we have not what we could wish. 

Still, there are certain cases in which this can hardly 
be so. A man of sense can bear cheerfully the frustra- 
tion of the romantic fancies of childhood and youth ; but 
not many are so philosophical in regard to the compara- 
tively reasonable anticipations of more reasonable years. 
When you got married at five-and-forty, your hopes 
were not extravagant. You knew quite well you were 
not winning the loveliest of her sex, and indeed you felt 
you had no right to expect to do so. You were well 
aware that in wisdom, knowledge, accomplishment, amia- 
bility, you could not reasonably look for more than the 
average of the race. But you thought you might rea- 
sonably look for that : and now, alas, alas ! you find you 
have not got it. How have I pitied a worthy and sen- 
sible man, listening to his wife making a fool of herself 
before a large company of people ! How have I pitied 
such a one, when I heard his wife talking the most idioti- 
cal nonsense ; or when I saw her flirting scandalously 
with a notorious scapegrace ; or learned of the large par 
ties which she gave in his absence, to the discredit of 
her own character and the squandering of his hard 
earned gains ! No habit, no philosophy, will ever rec- 
oncile a human being of right feeling to such a disap 
pointment as that. And even a sadder thing than thia 
— one of the saddest things in life — is when a ma» 
begins to feel that his whole life is a failure; not merely 
a failure as compared with the vain fancies of youth, 
but a failure as compared with his sobered convictions of 
what he ought to have been and what he might have 
been. Probably, in a desponding mood, we have all 



48 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

known the feeling ; and even when we half knew it 
was morbid and transient, it was a very painful one. 
But painful it must be beyond all names of pain, where 
it is the abiding, calm, sorrowful conviction of the man's 
whole being. Sore must be the heart of the man of 
middle age, who often thinks that he is thankful his 
father is in his grave, and so beyond mourning over 
his son's sad loss in life. And even when the sting- 
ing sense of guilt is absent, it is a mournful thing for 
one to feel that he has, so to speak, missed stays in his 
earthly voyage, and run upon a mud-bank which he can 
never get off: to feel one's self ingloriously and uselessly 
stranded, while those who started with us pass by with 
gay flag and swelHng sail. And all this may be while 
it is hard to know where to attach blame ; it may be 
when there was nothing worse to complain of than a 
want of promptitude, resolution, and tact, at the one test- 
ing time. Every one knows the passage in point in 
Shakspeare. 

Disappointment, I have said, is almost sure to be ex- 
perienced in a greater or less degree, so long as anything 
remains to be wished or sought. And a provision is 
made for the indefinite continuance of disappointment 
in the lot of even the most successful of men, by the 
fact in rerum natura that whenever the wants felt on a 
lower level are supplied, you advance to a higher plat- 
form, where a new crop of wants is felt. Till the lower 
wants are supplied you never feel the higher ; and ac- 
cordingly people who pass through life barely succeed- 
ing in gaining the supply of the lower wants, will hardly 
be got to believe that the higher wants are ever really 
felt at all. A man who is labouring anxiously to earn 



AND SUCCESS." 49 

food and shelter for liis children — who has no farther 
worldly end, and who thinks he would be perfectly 
happy if he could only be assured on New Year's day 
that he would never fail in earnino; these until the 
thirty-first of December, will hardly believe you when 
you tell him that the Marquis at the jcastle is now ut- 
terly miserable because the King would not give him 
n couple of yards of blue or green ribbon. And 
it is curious in how many cases worldly-successful 
men mount, step after step, into a new series of wants, 
implying a new set of mortifications and disappoint- 
ments. A person begins as a small tradesman ; all he 
aims at is a maintenance for him and his. That is his 
first aim. Say he succeeds in reaching it. A little ago 
he thought he would have been quite content could he 
only do that. But from his new level he sees afar a 
new peak to climb ; now he aims at a fortune. That 
is his next aim. Say he reaches it. Now he buys an 
estate ; now he aims at beinsr received and admitted as 
a country gentleman ; and the remainder of his life is 
given to striving for social recognition in the county. 
How he schemes to get the baronet to dine with him, 
and the baronet's lady to call upon his homely spouse ! 
And every one has remarked with amusement the hive 
of petty mortifications, failures, and disappointments, 
through which he fights his way, till, as it may chance, 
he actually gains a dubious footing in the society he 
seeks, or gives up the endeavour as a final failure. Who 
shall say that any one of the successive wants the man 
has felt is more fanciful, less real, than any other ? To 
Mr. Oddbody, living in his fine house, it is just as serious 
an aim to get asked to the Duke's ball, as in foimer 
days it was to Jack Oddbody to carry home on Satur 
4 



50 CONCEKNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

day night the shillings which were to buy his bread and 
cheese. 

And another shade of disappointment which keeps 
pace with all material success is that which arises, not 
from failing to get a thing, but from getting it and then 
discovering that it is not what we had fancied — that it 
will not make us happy. Is not this disappointment ft It 
everywhere ? When the writer was a little boy, he was 
promised that on a certain birthday a donkey should be 
bought for his future riding. Did not he frequently al- 
lude to it in conversation with his companions ? Did 
not he plague the servants for information as to the nat- 
ural history and moral idiosyncrasy of donkeys ? Did 
not the long-eared visage appear sometimes through his 
dreams ? Ah, the donkey came ! Then followed the 
days of being pitched over his head ; the occasions on 
which the brute of impervious hide rushed through 
hedges and left me sticking in them : happiness was no 
nearer, though the donkey was there. Have you not, 
my philosophic friend, had your donkey ? I mean your 
moral donkey. Yes, and scores of such. When you 
were a schoolboy, longing for the holidays, have you 
not chalked upon doors the legend — Oh for Au- 
gust ! Vague, delightful visions of perfect happiness 
were wrapped up in the words. But the holidays came, 
as all holidays have done and will do ; and in a few days 
you were heartily wearied of them. When you were 
spoony about Marjory Anne, you thought that once 
your donkey came, once you were fairly married and 
settled, what a fine thing it would be ! I do not say a 
pyllable against that youthful matron ; but I presume you 
have discovered that she falls short of perfection, and that 
wedded life has its many cares. You thought you would 



AND SUCCESS. 51 

enjoy so much the setting-up of your carriage ; 3'^our wife 
and you often enjoyed it by anticipation on dusty sum- 
mer days : but though all very well, wood and iron and 
leather never made the vehicle that shall realize your 
anticipations. The horses were often lame ; the springs 
would sometimes break ; the paint was always getting 
scratched and the lining cut. Oh, what a nuisance is a 
carriage ! You fancied you would be perfectly happy 
when you retired from business and settled in the coun- 
try. What a comment upon such fancies is the fashion 
in which retired men of business haunt the places of 
their former toils like unquiet ghosts ! How sick tl;ey 
get of the country ! I do not think of grand disappoint- 
ments of the sort ; of the satiety of Vathek, turning sickly 
away from his earthly paradise at Cintra ; nor of the 
graceful towers I have seen rising from a woody cliff 
above a summer sea, and of the story told me of their 
builder, who, after rearing them, lost interest in them, 
and in sad disappointment left them to others, and went 
back to the busy town wherein he had made his wealth. 
I think of men, more than one or two, who rented their 
acre of land by the sea-side, and built their pretty cot- 
tage, made their grassplots and trained their roses, and 
then in unaccustomed idleness grew weary of the whole 
and sold their place to some keen bargain-maker for a 
lithe of what it cost them. 

Why is it that failure in attaining ambitious ends is so 
[gainful? When one has honestly done one's best, and 
is beaten after all, conscience must be satisfied : the 
wound is solely to self-love ; and is it not to the discredit 
of our nature that that should imply such a weary, blank, 
bitter feeling as it often does ? Is it that every man has 
within hifi heart a lurking belief that, notwithstanding 



52 COXCERXING DISAPPOINTMENT 

the world's ignorance of the fact, there never was in the 
world anybody so remarkable as himself? I think that 
many mortals need daily to be putting down a vague 
feeling which really comes to that. You who have had 
experience of many men, know that you can hardly 
over-estimate the extent and depth of human vanity. 
Never be afraid but that nine men out of ten will swal- 
low with avidity flattery, however gross ; especially if it 
ascribe to them those qualities of which they are most 
manifestly deficient. 

A disappointed man looks with great interest at the 
man who has obtained what he himself wanted. Your 
mother, reader, says that her ambition for you would be 
entirely gratified if you could but reach a certain place 
which some one you know has held for twenty years. 
You look at him with much curiosity ; he appears very 
much like yourself; and, curiously, he does not appear 
particularly happy. Oh, reader, whatever you do — 
though last week he gained without an effort what you 
have been wishing for all your life — do not hate him. 
Resolve that you will love and wish well to the man who 
fairly succeeded where you fairly failed. Go to him and 
get acquainted with him : if you and he are both true 
men, you will not find it a difficult task to like him. It 
is perhaps asking too much of human nature to ask you 
to do all this in the case of the man who has carried off 
tlie woman you loved ; but as regards anything else, do 
it all. -Go to your successful rival, heartily congratulate 
him. Don't be Jesuitical ; don't merely felicitate the 
man ; put down the rising feeling of envy : that is al- 
ways out-and-out wrong. Don't give it a moment's quar- 
ter. You clerks in an office, ready to be angry with a 
fellow-clerk who gets the cliance of a trip to Scotland on 



f 



AND SUCCESS. 53 

business, don't g-ve in to the feeling. Shake hands with 
him all round, and go in a body with him to Euston 
Square, and give him three cheers as he departs by the 
night mail. Axid you, greater mortals — you, rector of 
a beautiful parish, who think you would have done for a 
bishop as well as the clergyman next you who has got 
the mitre ; you, clever barrister, sure some day to be 
solicitor-general, though sore to-day because a man next 
door has got that coveted post before you ; go and see 
the successful man — go forthwith, congratulate him heart- 
ily, say frankly you wish it had been you : it will do 
great good both to him and to yourself. Let it not be 
that envy — that bitter and fast-growing fiend — shall be 
suffered in your heart for one minute. When I was at 
college 1 sat on the same bench with a certain man. We 
were about the same age. Now, I am a country parson, 
and he is a cabinet minister. Oh, how he has distanced 
poor me in the race of life ! Well, he had a tremendous 
start, no doubt. Now, shall I hate him ? Shall I pitch 
into him, rake up all his errors of youth, tell how stupid 
he was (though indeed he was not stupid), and bitterly 
gloat over the occasion on which he fell on the ice and 
tore his inexpressibles in the presence ©f a grinning 
throng ? No, my old fellow-student, who hast now 
doubtless forgotten my name, though I so well remem- 
ber yours, though you got your honours possibly in some 
measure from the accident of your birth, you have nobly 
justified their being given you so early ; and so I look 
on with interest to your loftier advancement yet, and I 
say — God bless you ! 

I think, if I were an examiner at one of the Univer- 
sities, that 1 should be an extremely popular one. No 



64 CONCEEKING DISAPPOINTMENT 

man should ever be plucked. Of course it would be 
very wrong, and, happily, the woik is in the hands of 
those who are much fitter for it ; but, instead of thinking 
solely and severely of a man's fitness to pass, I could not 
help thinking a great deal of the heartbreak it would be 
to the poor fellow and his family if he were turned. It 
would be ruin to any magazine to have me for its editor 
I should always be printing all sorts of rubbishing arti- 
cles, which are at present consigned to the Balaam-box. 
I could not bear to grieve and disappoint the young lady 
who sends her gushing verses. I should be picturing to 
myself the long hours of toil that resulted in the clever 
lad's absurd attempt at a review, and all his fluttering 
hopes and fears as to whether it was to be accepted or 
not. No doubt it is by this mistaken kin'dness that insti- 
tutions are damaged and ruined. The weakness of a 
sympathetic bishop burdens the Church with a clergy- 
man who for many years will be an injury to her ; and it 
would have been far better even for the poor fellow him- 
self to have been decidedly and early kept out of a voca- 
tion for which he is wholly unfit. I am far from saying 
that the resolute examiner who plucks freely, and the reso- 
lute editor who rejects firmly, are deficient in kindness of 
heart, or even in vividness of imagination to picture what 
they are doing : though much of the suffering and disap- 
pointment of this world is caused by men who are almost 
unaware of what they do. Like the brothers of Isahellaj 
In Keats' beautiful poem. 

Half ignorant, they turn an easy wheel, 

That sets sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel. 

Yet though principle and moral decision may be in 
you sufficient to prevent your weakly yielding to the 



AND SUCCESS. 55 

feeling, be sure you always sympathize with failure ; — 
honest, laborious failure. And I think all but very mali- 
cious persons generally do sympathize with it. It is 
easier to sympathize with failure than with success. No 
trace of envy comes in to mar your sympathy, and you 
have a pleasant sense that you are looking down from a 
loftier elevation. The average man likes to have some 
one to look down upon — even to look down upon kindly. 
I remember being greatly touched by hearing of a young 
man of much promise, who went to preach his first ser- 
mon in a little church by the sea-shore in a lonely high- 
land glen. He preached his sermon, and got on pretty 
fairly ; but after service he went down to the shore of 
the far-sounding sea, and wept to think how sadly he had 
fallen short of his ideal, how poor was his appearance 
compared to what he had intended and hoped. Perhaps 
a foolish vanity and self-conceit was at the foundation of 
his disappointment ; but though I did not know him at 
all, I could not but have a very kindly sympathy for him. 
I heard, years afterwards, with great pleasure, that he 
had attained to no small eminence and success as a pulpit 
orator ; and I should not have alluded to him here but 
for the fact that in early youth, and amid greater expec- 
tations of him, he passed away from this life of high aims 
and poor fulfilments. I think how poor Keats, no doubt 
morbidly ambitious as well as morbidly sensitive, declared 
in his preface to Endymion that ' there is no fiercer hell 
than failure in a great attempt.' 

Most thoughtful men must feel it a curious and inter- 
esting study, to trace the history of the closing days of 
those persons who have calmly and deliberately, in no 
sudden heat of passion, taken away their own life. In 
«uph cases, of course, we see the sense of failure, abso- 



66 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

lute and complete. Tliej have quietly resolved lo give 
up life as a losing game. You remember the poor man 
who, having spent his last shilling, retired to a wood far 
from human dwellings, and there died voluntarily by 
starvation. He kept a diary of those days of gradual 
death, setting out his feelings both of body and mind. 
*.^o nourishment passed his lips after he had chosen his 
last resting-place, save a little water, which he dragged 
himself to a pond to drink. He was not discovered till 
he was dead ; but his melancholy chronicle appeared to 
have been carried down to very near the time when he 
became unconscious. I remember its great characteristic 
appeared to be a sense of utter foilure. There seemed 
to be no passion, none of the bitter desperate resolution 
which prompts the energetic ' Anywhere, anywhere, out 
of the world ; ' but merely a weary, lonely wish to creep 
quietly away. I have no look 'but one of sorrow and 
pity to cast on the poor suicide's grave. I think the 
common English verdict is right as well as charitable, 
which supposes that in every such case reason has be- 
come unhinged, and responsibility is gone. And what 
desperate misery, what a black horrible anguish of heart, 
whether expressing itself calmly or feverishly, must have 
laid its gripe upon a human being before it can overcome 
in him the natural clinging to life, and make him deliber- 
ately t jrn his back uj)on ' the warm precincts of the 
cheerful day.' No doubt it is the saddest of all sad 
ends ; but I do not forget that a certain Authority, the 
highest of all authorities, said to all human beings, 
' Judge not, that ye be not judged.' The writer has, 
in the course of his duty, looked upon more than one 
suicide's dead face ; and the lines of Hood appeared to 
sketch the fit feelinoj with which to do so : — 



AND SUCCESS. 57 

Owning her weakness, 

Her evil behaviour; 
And leaving, with meekness, 

Her soul to her Saviour. 

Wliat I have just written recalls to me, by some link 
of association, the words I once heard a simple old Scotch- 
woman utter by her son's deathbed. He was a young 
man of twenty-two, a pious and good young man, and I 
had seen him very often throughout his gradual decline. 
Calling one morning, I found he was gone, and his mother 
beofo-ed me to come and see his face once more ; and 
standing for the last time by him, I said (and I could say 
them honestly) some words of Christian comfort to the 
poor old woman. I told her, in words far better than 
any of my own, how the Best Friend of mankind had 
said, * I am the Resurrection and the Life : he that be- 
lieveth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never 
die.' I remember well her answer. ' Aye,' said she, 
* he gaed away trusting" in that ; and he'll be sorely dis- 
appointed if he doesna' find it so.' Let me venture to ex- 
press my hope, that when my readers and I pass within the 
veil, we may run the risk of no other disappointment than 
that these words should prove false ; and then it will be 
well with us. There will be no disappointment there, in 
the sense of things failing to come up to our expectations. 

Let it be added, that there are disappointments with 
which even the kindest hearts will have no sympathy, 
and failures over which we may without malignity re- 
joice. You do not feel very deeply for the disappointed 
burglar, who retires from your dwelling at 3 A. m., leav- 
ing a piece of the calf of his leg in the jaws of your 



58 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

trusty watch-dog ; nor for the Irish bog-trotter who (poor 
fellow), from behind the hedge, misses his aim at the 
landlord who fed him and his family through the season 
of famine. You do not feel very deeply for the disap- 
pointment of the friend, possibly the slight acquaintance, 
who with elongated face retires from your study, having 
failed to persuade you to attach your signature to a bill 
for some hundreds of pounds 'just as a matter of form.* 
Very likely he wants the money ; so did the burglar : 
but is that any reason why you should give it to him ? 
Refer him to the wealthy and influential relatives of 
whom he has frequently talked to you ; tell him they 
are the very people to assist him in such a case with 
their valuable autograph. As for yourself, tell him you 
know what you owe to your children and yourself; and 
say that the slightest recurrence to such a subject must 
be the conclusion of all intercourse between you. Ah, 
poor disappointed fellow ! How heartless it is in you to 
refuse to pay, out of your hard earnings, the money which 
he so jauntily and freely spent ! 

How should disappointment be met ? Well, that is far 
too large a question to be taken up at this stage of my 
essay, though there are various suggestions which I 
should like to make. Some disappointed men take to 
gardening and farming ; and capital things they are. 
But when disappointment is extreme, it will paralyse 
you so that you will suffer the weeds to grow up all 
about you, without your having the heart to set your 
mind to the work of having the place made neat. The 
state of a man's garden is a very delicate and sensitive 
test as to whether he is keeping hopeful and well-to-do. 
It is to me a very sad sight to see a parsonage getting a 



AND SUCCESS. 59 

dilapidated look, and the gravel walks in its garden grow- 
ing weedj. The parson must be growing old and poor. 
The paiishioners tell you how trim and orderly every- 
thing was when he came first to the parish. But his 
affairs have become embarrassed, or his wife and chil- 
dren are dead ; and though still doing his duty well and 
faithfully, he has lost heart and interest in these little 
matters ; and so things are as you see. 

I have been amused by the way in which some people 
meet disappointment. They think it a great piece of 
worldly wisdom to deny that they have ever been dis- 
appointed at all. Perhaps it might be so, if the pretext 
were less transparent than it is. An old lady's son is 
plucked at an examination for a civil appointment. Sh6 
takes up the ground that it is rather a credit to be 
plucked ; that nearly everybody is plucked ; that all the 
cleverest fellows are plucked ; and that only stupid fel- 
lows are allowed to pass. When the examiners find a 
clever man, they take a pleasure in plucking him. A 
number of the cleverest men in England can easily put 
out a lad of one-and-twenty. Then, shifting her ground, 
she declares the examination was ridiculously easy : her 
son was rejected because he could not tell what two and 
two amount to : because he did not know the name of 
the river on which London is built : because he did not 
(in his confusion) know his own name. She shows you 
the indignant letter which the young man wrote to her, 
announcing the scandalous injustice with which he was 
treated. You remark three words misspelt in the first 
five lines ; and you fancy you have fathomed the secret 
of the plucking. 

1 have sometimes tried, but in vain, to discover the 



60 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT 

law which regulates the attainment of extreme popularity. 
Extreme popularity, in this country and age, appears a 
very arbitrary thing. I defy any person to predict a 
priori what book, or song, or play, or picture, is to be- 
come the rage, — to utterly transcend all competition. 
I believe, indeed, that there cannot be popularity for 
even a short time, "without some kind or degree of merit 
to deserve it ; and in any case there is no other standard 
to which one can appeal than the deliberate judgment 
of th3 mass of educated persons. If you are quite con- 
vinced that a thing is bad which all such think good, why, 
of course you are wrong. If you honestly think Shak- 
speare a fool, you are aware you must be mistaken. And 
so, if a book, or a picture, or a play, or a song, be really 
good, and if it be properly brought before the public no- 
tice, you may, as a general rule, predict that it will at- 
tain a certain measure of success. But the inexplicable 
thing — the thing of which I am quite unable to trace the 
law — is extreme success. How is it that one thing shoots 
ahead of everything else of the same class ; and without 
being materially better, or even materially different, leaves 
everything else out of sight behind? Why is it that 
Eclipse is first and the rest nowhere, while the legs and 
wind of Eclipse are no whit better than the legs and wind 
of all the rest ? If tw^enty novels of nearly equal merit 
are published, it is not impossible that one shall dart 
ahead of the remaining nineteen ; that it shall be found 
in every library ; that Mr. Mudie may announce that he 
has 3250 copies of it ; that it shall be the talk of every 
circle ; its incidents set to music, its plot dramatized ; 
that it shall count readers by thousands while others 
count readers by scores ; wdiile yet one cannot really see 
why any of the others might not have taken its pla'^-e. 



AND SUCCESS. CI 

Or of a score of coarse comic songs, nineteen shall never 
get beyond the walls of the Cyder Cellars (I understand 
there is a place of the name), while the twentieth, no 
wise superior in any respect, comes to be sung about the 
streets, known by everybody, turned into polkas and 
quadrilles and in fact to become for the time one of tha 
institutions of this great and intelligent country. I re- 
member how, a year or two since, that contemptible Bat' 
catcher's Daughter^ without a thing to recommend it, with 
no music, no wit, no sentiment, nothing but vulgar brutal- 
ity, might be heard in every separate town of England 
and Scotland, sung about the streets by every ragged ur- 
chin ; while the other songs of the vivacious Cowell fell 
dead from his lips. The will of the sovereign people has 
decided that so it shall be. And as likings and dislikings 
in most cases are things strongly felt, but impossible to 
account for even by the person who feels them, so is it 
"A^ith the enormous admiration, regard, and success which 
fall to the lot of many to whom popularity is success. 
Actors, statesmen, authors, preachers, have often in Eng- 
land their day of quite undeserved popular ovation ; and 
by and bye their day of entire neglect. It is the rocket 
and the stick. We are told that Bishop Butler, about 
the period of the great excesses of the French Revo- 
lution, was walking in his garden with his chaplain. 
After a long fit of musing, the Bishop turned to the 
chaplain, and asked the question whether nations might 
not go mad, as w^ell as individuals ? Classes of society, 
I think, may certainly have attacks of temporary insan- 
ity on some one point. The Jenny Lind fever was 
Buch an attack. Such was the popularity of the boy- 
actor Betty. Such the popularity of the Small Coal 
Man some time in the last century ; such that of the hip* 



C2 CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT AND SUCCESS. 

popotamus at the Regent's Park; such that of Unclt 
Toms Cabin, 

But this essay must have an end. It is far too long 
already. I am tired of it, and a fortiori my reader must 
be so. Let me try the effect of an abrupt conclusion. 




CHAPTER III. 
CONCERNING SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS; 

WITH SOME THOUGHTS UPON THE SWING OF THE 
PENDULUM.* 

HAVE eaten up all the grounds of my tea, 
said, many years since, in my hearing, in 
modest yet triumphant tones, a little girl of 
seven years old. I have but to close my 
eyes, and I see all that scene again, almost as plainly as 
ever. Six or seven children (I am one of them) are sit- 
ting round a tea-table ; their father and mother are there 
too ; and an old gentleman, who is (in his own judgment) 
one of the wisest of men. I see the dining-room, large 
and low-ceilinged ; the cheerful glow of the autumnal 
fire ; the little faces in the soft candle-light, for glaring 
gas was there unknown. There had been much talk 
about the sinfulness of waste — of the waste of even 
very little things. The old gentleman, so wise (in his own 
judgment, and indeed in my judgment at that period), 

* For the suggestion of the subject of this essay, and for many valu- 
able hints as to its treatment, I am indebted to the kindness of the 
Archbishop of Dublin. Indeed, in all that part of the essay which 
treats of Secondary Vulgar Errors. I have done little more than ex- 
pand and illustrate the skeleton of thought supplied to me by Arch- 
bishop Whately. 



64 CONCEKNING SCYLLA 

was instilling into the children's minds some of those les- 
sons which are often impressed upon children by peoplie 
(I am now aware) of no great wisdom or cleverness. 
He had dwelt at considerable length upon the sinfulness 
of wasting anything ; likewise on the sinfulness of chil- 
dren behig saucy or particular as to what they should 
eat. He enforced, with no small solemnity, the duty of 
children's eating what was set before them without mind- 
ing whether it was good or not, or at least without mind- 
ing whether they liked it or not. The poor little girl 
listened to all that was said, and of course received it all 
as indubitably true. Waste and sauciness, she saw, were 
wrong, so she judged that the very opposite of waste and 
sauciness must be right. Accordingly, she thought she 
would turn to use something that was very small, but 
still something that ought not to be wasted. Accordingly, 
she thought she would show the docility of her taste by 
eating up something that was very disagreeable. Here 
was an opportunity at once of acting out the great prin- 
ciples to which she had been listening. And while a boy, 
evidently destined to be a metaphysician, and evidently 
possessed of the spirit of resistance to constituted author- 
ity whether in government or doctrine, boldly argued that 
it could not be wicked in him to hate onions, because God 
had made him so that he did hate onions, and (going still 
deeper into things) insisted that to eat a thing when you 
did not want it was wasting it much more truly than it 
would be wasting it to leave it ; the little girl ate up all 
the grounds left in her teacup, and then announced the 
fact with considerable complacency. 

Very, very natural. The little girl's act was a slight 
fitraw showing how a great current sets. It was a fair 
exemplification of a tendency which is v»'oven into the 



AND CHARY BDIS. 65 

make of oar being. Tell the average mortal that it is 
wrong to walk on the left side of the road, and in nine 
cases out of ten he will conclude that the proper thing 
must be to walk on the right side of the road ; whereas in 
actual life, and in aluiost all opinions, moral, political, and 
religious, the proper thing is to walk neither on the left 
nor the right side, but somewhere about the middle. Say 
to the ship-master, You are to sail through a perilous 
strait ; you will have the raging Scylla on one hand as 
you go. His natural reply will be. Well, I will keep as 
far away from it as possible;.! will keep close by the 
other side. But the rejoinder must be, No, you will be 
quite as ill off there ; you will be in equal peril on the 
other side : there is Charybdis. What you have to do is 
to keep at a safe distance from each. In avoiding the 
one, do not run into the other. 

It seems to be a great law of the universe, that Wrong 
lies upon either side of the way, and that Right is the 
narrow path between. There are the two ways of doing 
wrong — Too Much and Too Little. Go to the extreme 
right hand, and you are wrong ; go to the extreme left 
hand, and you are wrong too. That you ma}^ be right, you 
have to keep somewhere between these two extremes : but 
not necessarily in the exact middle. All this, of course, 
is part of the great fact that in thi^ world Evil has the 
advantage of Good. It is easier to go wrong than light. 

It is very natural to think that if one thing or course 
be wrong, its reverse must be right. If it be wrong to 
walk towards the east, surely it must be right to Avalk 
towards the west. If it be wrong to dress in black, it 
must be right to dress in white. It is somewhat hard to 
say, Dum vitant stiilti vitia, in coniraria currunt — to 
declare, as if that were a statement of the whole truth, 
5 



66 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

that fools mistake reverse of wrong for right. Fools do 
60 indeed, but not fools only. The average human being, 
with the most honest intentions, is prone to mistake re- 
verse of wrong for right. We are fond, by our natural 
constitution, of broad distinctions — of classifications that 
put the whole interests and objects of this world to the 
right-hand and to the left. We long for Aye or No — 
for Heads or Tails. We are impatient of limitations, 
qualifications, restrictions. You remember how Mr. 
Micawber explained the philosophy of income and ex- 
penditure, and urged people never to run in debt. In- 
come^ said he, a hundred pounds a year; expenditure 
ninety-nine pounds nineteen shillings : Happiness. In- 
come^ a hundred pounds a year ; expenditure a hundred 
founds and one shilling : Misery. You see the princi- 
ple involved is, that if you are not happy, you must be 
miserable — that if you are not miserable, you must be 
happy. If you are not any particular thing, then you are 
its opposite. If you are not For, then you are Against. 
If you are not black, many men will jump to the con- 
clusion that you are white : the fact probably being that 
you are gray. If not a Whig, you must be a Tory : in 
truth, you are a Liberal-Conservative. We desiderate in 
all things the sharp decidedness of the verdict of a jury 
— Guilty or Not GKiilty. We like to conclude that if a 
man be not very good, then he is very bad ; if not very 
clever, then very stupid ; if not very wise, then a fool : 
whereas in fact, the man probably is a curious mixture of 
good and evil, strength and weakness, wisdom and folly, 
knowledge and ignorance, cleverness and stupidity. 

Let it be here remarked, that in speaking of it as an 
error to take reverse of wrong for right, I use the words 
iQ their ordinary sense, as generally understood. In 



AND CHARYBDIS. 67 

«5ommon language the reverse of a thing is taken to mean 
the thing at the opposite end of the scale from it. Thus, 
black is the reverse of white, bigotry of latitudinarian- 
ism, malevolence of benevolence, parsimony of extrava- 
gance, and the like. Of course, in strictness, these things 
are not the reverse of one another. In strictness, the 
reverse of wrong always is right ; for, to speak with 
severe precision, the reverse of steering upon Scylla is 
simply not steering upon Scylla ; the reverse of being 
extravagant is not being parsimonious — it is simply not 
being extravagant ; the reverse of walking eastward is 
not walking westward — it is simply not walking east- 
ward. And that may include standing still, or walking 
to any point of the compass except the east. But I 
understand the reverse of a thing as meaning the opposite 
extreme from it. And you see, the Latin words quoted 
above are more precise than the English. It is severely 
true, that while fools think to shun error on one side, they 
run into the contrary error — i. e., the error that lies equi- 
distant, or nearly equi-distant, on the other side of the 
line of right. 

One class of the errors into which men are prone to 
run under this natural impulse are those which have been 
termed Secondary Vidgar Errors. A vulgar error, you 
will understand, my reader, does not by any means sig- 
nify an error into which only the vulgar are likely to 
fall. It does not by any means signify a mistaken belief 
which will be taken up only by inferior and uneducated 
minds. A vulgar error means an error either in conduct 
or belief into which man, by the make of his being, is 
likely to fall. Now, people a degree wiser and more 
thoughtful than the mass, discover that these vulgar er- 
rors are errors. They conclude that their opposites (i. «., 



68 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

the things at the other extremity of the scale) must be 
right; and by running into the opposite extreme they 
run just as far wrong upon the other side. There is too 
great a reaction. The twig was bent to the right — they 
bend it to the left, forgetting that the right thing was that 
the twig should be straight. If convinced that waste 
and sauciness are wrong, they proceed to eat the grounds 
of their tea ; if convinced that self-indulgence is wrong, 
they CO iclude that hair-shirts and midnight floggings are 
right ; if convinced that the Church of Rome has too 
many ceremonies, they resolve that they will have no 
ceremonies at all ; if convinced that it is unworthy to 
grovel in the presence of a duke, they conclude that it 
will be a fine thing to refuse the duke ordinary civility ; 
if convinced that inonarchs are not much wiser or better 
than other human beings, they run off into the belief 
that all kings have been little more than incarnate de- 
mons ; if convinced that representative government often 
works very imperfectly, they raise a cry for imperialism ; 
if convinced that monarchy has it? abuses, they call out 
for republicanism ; if convinced that Britain has many 
things which are not so good as they ought to be, they 
keep constantly extolling the perfection of the United 
States. 

Now, inasmuch as a rise of even one step in the scale 
of thought elevates the man who has taken it above the 
vast host of men who have never taken even that one 
step, the number of people who (at least in matters of 
any moment) arrive at the Secondary Vulgar Error is 
much less than the number of the people who stop at the 
Primary Vulgar Error. Very great multitudes of hu- 
man beings think it a very fine thing, the very finest 
of all human things, to be very rich. A much smaller 



AND CHARYBDIS. 69 

number, either from the exercise of their own reflective 
powers, or from the indoctrination of romantic novels and 
overdrawn rehgious books, run to the opposite extreme : 
undervalue wealth, deny that it adds anything to human 
comfort and enjoyment, declare that it is an unmixed evil, 
profess to despise it. I dare say that many readers of the 
Idylls of the King will so misunderstand that exquisite 
song of ' Fortune and her Wheel,' as to see in it only the 
charming and sublime embodiment of a secondary vulgar 
error, — the error, to wit, that wealth and outward circum- 
stances are of no consequence at alL To me that song 
appears rather to take the further step, and to reach the 
conclusion in which is embodied the deliberate wisdom 
of humankind upon this matter : the conclusion which 
shakes from itself on either hand either vulgar error: the 
idolization of wealth on the one side, the contempt of it 
on the- other : and to convey the sobered judgment that 
while the advantages and refinements of fortune are so 
great "that no thoughtful man can long despise it, the re- 
sponsibilities and temptations of it are so great that no 
thoughtful man will much repine if he fail to reach it ; 
and thus that we may genially acquiesce in that which it 
pleases God to send. Midway between two vulgar er- 
rors : steering a sure track between Scylla and Charyb- 
dis : the grovelling multitude to the left, the romantic 
few to the right ; stand the words of inspired wisdom. 
The pendulum had probably oscillated many times be- 
tween the two errors, before it settled at the central 
truth ; ' Give me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me 
with food convenient for me : Lest I be full and deny 
Thee, and say, Who is the Lord ? Or lest I be poor, 
and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.' 

But althouofh these errors of reaction are less common 



70 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

than tlie primary vulgar errors, they are better worth 
noticing : inasmuch as in many cases they are the errors 
of the well-intentioned. People fall into the primary 
vulgar errors without ever thinking of right or wrong : 
merely feeling an impulse to go there, or to think thus. 
But worthy folk, for the most part, fall into the second- 
ary vulgar errors, while honestly endeavouring to ascap6 
what they have discerned to be wrong. Not indeed that 
it is always in good faith that men i dn to the opposite 
extreme. Sometimes they do it in pet and perversity, 
being well aware that they are doiiig wrong. You hint 
to some young friend, to whom you are nearly enough 
related to be justified in doing so, that the dinner to 
which he has invited you, with several others, is un- 
.lecessarily fine, is somewhat extravagant, is beyond 
what he can afford. The young friend asks you back 
in a week or two, and sets before you a feast of salt her- 
rings and potatoes. Now the fellow did not run into 
this extreme with the honest intention of doing right. 
He knew perfectly well that this was not what you 
meant. He did not go through this piece of folly in 
the sincere desire to avoid the other error of extrava- 
gance. Or, you are a country clergyman. You are 
annoyed, Sunday by Sunday, by a village lad who, from 
enthusiasm or ostentation, sings so loud in church as to 
disturb the whole congregation. You hint to him, as 
kindly as you can, that there is som.ething very pleas- 
ing about the softer tones of his voice, and that you 
would like to hear them more frequently. But the lad 
sees through your civil way of putting the case. His 
vanity is touched. He sees you mean that you don't 
like to hear him bellow : and next Sunday you will ob- 
ycrve that he shuts up his hymn-book in dudgeon, and 



AND CHARYBDIS. 71 

will not sing at all. Leave the blockhead to himself 
Do not set yourself to stroke down his self-conceit : he 
knows quite well he is doing wrong : there is neither 
sense nor honesty in what he does. You remark at 
dinner, while staying with a silly old gentleman, that the 
plum-pudding, though admirable, perhaps errs on the 
side of over-richness ; next day he sets before you a 
mass of stiff paste with no plums at all, and says, with a 
look of sly stupidity, 'Well, I hopo you are satisfied 
now.' Politeness prevents your replyii.g, ' No, you don't. 
You know that is not what I meant. You are a fool.' 
You remember the boy in Pichivick, who on his father 
finding tault with him for something wrong he had done, 
offered to kill himself if that would be any satisfaction to 
his parent. In this case you have a more recondite in- 
stance of this peculiar folly. Here the primary course 
is tacitly assumed, without being stated. The primary 
impulse of the human being is to take care of himself ; 
the opposite of that of course is to kill himself. And 
the boy, being chidden for doing something which might 
rank under the general head of taking care of himself, 
proposed (as that course appeared unsatisfactory) to take 
the opposite one. ' You don't take exercise enough,* 
said a tutor to a wrong-headed boy who was under his 
care : ' you ought to walk more.' Next morning the 
perverse fellow entered the breakfast parlour in a fagged 
condition, and said, with the air of a martyr, ' Well, I 
trust I have taken exercise enough to-day : I have 
walked twenty miles this morning.' As for all such 
manifestations of the disposition to run into opposite ex- 
(remes, let them be treated as manifestations of petted- 
ness, perversity, and dishonesty. In some cases a high- 
spirited youth may be excused them; but, for the most. 



72 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

part, they come with doggedness, wrong-headedness, and 
dense stupidity. And any pretext that they are exhibit- 
ed with an honest intention to do right, ought to be re- 
garded as a transparently false pretext. 

I have now before me a list (prepared by a much 
stronger hand than mine) of honest cases in which men, 
avoiding Scylla, run into Charybdis : in which men, 
thinking to bend the crooked twig straight, bend it back- 
wards. But before mentioning these, it may be remarked, 
that there is often such a thing as a reaction from a 
natural tendency, even when that natural tendency is 
not towards what may be called a primary vulgar error. 
The law of reaction extends to all that human beings 
can ever feel the disposition to think or do. There are, 
doubtless, minds of great fixity of opinion and motive : 
and there are certain things, in the case of almost all 
men, as regards which their belief and their active bias 
never vary through life : but with most human beings, 
with nations, with humankind, as regards very many and 
very important matters, as surely and as far as the pen- 
dulum has swung to the right, so surely and so far will 
it swing to the left. I do not say that an opinion in fa- 
vour of monarchy is a primary vulgar error ; or that an 
opinion in favour of republicanism is a secondary : both 
may be equally right : but assuredly each of these is a 
reaction from the other. America, for instance, is one 
great reaction from Europe. The principle on which, 
these reactionary swings of the pendulum take place, is 
plain. Whatever be your present position, you feel its 
evils and drawbacks keenly. Your feeling of the present 
evil is much more vivid than your imagination of the 
evil which is sure to be inherent in the opposite system, 
whatever that may be. ' You live in a country where 



AND CHARYBDIS. 73 

the national Church is Presbyterian. You see, day by 
day, many inconveniences and disadvantages inherent in 
that form of church government. It is of the nature of 
evil lo make its presence much more keenly felt than the 
presence of good. So while keenly alive to the draw- 
backs of presbytery, you are hardly conscious of its ad- 
vantages. You swing over, let us suppose, to the other 
end : you swing over from Scotland into England, from 
presbytery to episcopacy. For awhile you are quite de- 
lighted to find yourself free from the little evils of which 
you had been wont to complain. But by and bye the 
drawbacks of episcopacy begin to push themselves upon 
your notice. You have escaped one set of disadvanta- 
ges : you iind that you have got into the middle of an- 
other. Scylla no longer bellows in your hearing ; but 
Charybdis whirls you round. You begin to feel that the 
country and the system yet remain to be sought, in which 
some form of evil, of inconvenience, of worry, shall not 
press you. Am I wrong in fancying, dear friends more 
than one or two, that but for very shame the pendulum 
would swing back again to the point from which it start- 
ed : and you, kindly Scots, would find yourselves more 
at home in kindly and homely Scotland, with her simple 
forms and faith ? So far as my experience has gone, I 
think that in all matters not of vital moment, it is best 
that the pendulum should stay at the end of the swing 
where it first found itself: it will be in no more stable 
position at the other end : and it will somehow feel 
stranger-like there. And you, my friend, thougli in 
your visits to Anglican territory you heartily conform 
to the Anglican Church, and enjoy as much as mortal 
flan her noble cathedrals and her stately worship ; still I 
know that after all, you cannot shake oflf the spell in 



74 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

which the old remembrances of your boyhood have bound 
you. I know that your heart warms to the Burning 
Bush ; * and that it will, till death chills it. 

A noteworthy fact in regard to the swing of the' pen- 
dulum, is that the secondary tendency is sometimes found 
in the ruder state of society, and the less reflective man. 
Naturalness comes last. The pendulum started from 
naturalness : it swung over into artificiality : and with 
(houglitful people it has swung back to naturalness again. 
Thus it is natural, when in danger, to be afraid. It is 
natural, when you are possessed bj any strong feeling, 
to show it. You see all this in children : this is the 
point which the pendulum starts from. It swings over, 
and we find a reaction from this. The reaction is, to 
maintain and exhibit perfect coolness and indifference 
in danger ; to pretend to be incapable of fear. This 
state of things we find in the Red Indian, a rude and 
uncivilized being. But it is plain that w!th people who 
are able to think, there must be a reaction from this. 
The pendulum cannot long stay in a position which flies 
go completely in the face of the law of gravitation. It 
is pure nonsense to talk about being incapable of fear. 
I remember reading somewhere about Queen Eliza- 
beth, that ' her soul was incapable of fear.' That state- 
ment is false and absurd. You may regard fear as 
immanly and unworthy : you may repress the manifes- 
tations of it ; but the state of mind which (in beings not 
properly monstrous or defective) follows the perception 
of being in danger, is fear. As surely as the perception 
of light is sight, so surely is the perception of danger 
fear. And for a man to say that his soul is incapable of 
fear, is just as absurd as to say that from a peculiarity of 

* Tke scutcheon of the Church of Scotland. 



AND CHARYBDIS. 75 

constitution, when dipped in water, he does not get wet. 
You, human being, whoever you may be, when you are 
placed in danger, and know you are placed in danger, 
and reflect on the fact, you feel afraid. Don't vapour 
and say no ; we know how the mental machine must 
work, unless it be diseased. Now, the thoughtful man 
admits all this : he admits that a bullet through hia 
brain would be a very serious thing for himself, and like- 
Avise for his wife and children : he admits that he shrinks 
from such a prospect ; he will take pains to protect him- 
self from the risk ; but he says that if duty requires him 
to run the risk he will run it. , This is the courage of 
the civilized man as opposed to the blind, bull- dog insen- 
sibility of the savage. T7us is courage — to know the 
existence of danger, but to face it nevertheless. Here, 
under the influence of longer thought, the pendulum has 
swung into common sense, though not quite back to the 
point from which it started. Of course, it still keeps 
swinging about in individual minds. The other day I 
read in a newspaper a speech by a youthful rifleman, ia 
which he boasted that no matter to what danger exposed, 
his corps would never take shelter behind trees and 
rocks, but would stand boldly out to the aim of the 
enemy. I was very glad to find this speech answered in 
a letter to the Times, written by a rifleman of great ex- 
perience and proved bravery. The experienced man 
pointed out that the inexperienced man was talking non- 
sense : that true courage appeared in manfully facing 
risks which were inevitable, but not in running into need- 
Bess peril : and that the business of a soldier was to be 
as useful to his country and as destructive to the enemy 
as possible, and not to make needless exhibitions of per- 
sonal foolhardicess. Thus swings the pendulum as to 



76 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

danger and fear. The point of departure, the primary 
impulse, is, 

1. An impulse to avoid danger at all hazards : ^. e., to 
run away, and save yourself, however discreditably. 

Tlie pendulum swings to the other extremity, and we 
have the secondary impulse — 

2. An impulse to disregard danger, and even to run 
into it, as if it were of no consequence at all ; i. e., young 
rifleman foolhardiness, and Red Indian insensibility. 

The pendulum comes so far back, and rests at the point 
of wisdom : 

3. A determination tg avoid all danger, the running 
into which would do no good, and which may be avoided 
consistently with honour ; but manfully to face danger, 
however great, that comes in the way of duty. 

But after all this deviation from the track, I return to 
my list of Secondary Vulgar Errors, run into with good 
and honest intentions. Here is the first — 

Don't you know, my reader, that it is natural to think 
very bitterly of the misconduct which affects yourself? 
If a man cheats your friend, or cheats your slight ac- 
quaintance, or cheats some one who is quite unknown to 
you, by selling him a lame horse, you disapprove his con- 
duct, indeed, but not nearly so much as if he had cheated 
yourself. You learn that Miss Limejuice has been dis- 
seminating a grossly untrue account of some remarks 
which you made in her hearing : and your first impulse 
is to condemn her malicious falsehood much more severely 
than if she had merely told a few lies about some one 
•else. Yet it is quite evident that if we were to estimate 
the doings of men with perfect justice, we should fix 
6olely on the moral element in their doings ; and the 



AND CHAEYBDIS. 77 

accidental circumstance of the offence or injury to our- 
selves would be neither here nor there. The primary 
vulgar error, then, in this case is, undue and excessive 
disapprobation of misconduct from which we have suf- 
fered. No one but a very stupid person would, if it 
were fairly put to him, maintain that this extreme disap- 
probation was right ; but it cannot be denied that this ia 
the direction to which all human beings are likely, at 
first, to feel an impulse to go. A man does you some 
injury : you are much angrier than if he had done the 
like injury to some one else. You are much angrier 
when your own servants are guilty of little neglects and 
follies, than when the servants of your next neighbour 
are guilty in a precisely similar degree. The Prime 
Minister (or Chancellor) fails to make you a Queen's 
Counsel or a Judge : you are much more angry than if 
he had overlooked some other man, of precisely equal 
merit. And I do not mean merely that the injury done 
to yourself comes more home to you, but that positively 
you think it a worse thing. It seems as if there were 
more of moral evil in it. The boy who steals your 
plums seems worse than other boys stealing other plums. 
The servant who sells your oats and starves your horses, 
seems worse than other servants who do the like. It is 
not merely that you feel where the shoe pinches yourself, 
more than where it pinches another : that is all quite 
right. It is that you have a tendency to think it is a 
worse shoe than another which gives an exactly equal 
amount of pain. You are prone to dw^ell upon and brood 
over the misconduct which affected yourself. 

Well, you begin to see that this is unworthy, that self- 
ishness and mortified conceit are at the foundation of it. 
You determine that you will shake yourself free from 



78 CONCEKNING SCYLLA 

tl\is vulgar error. What more magnanimous, you think, 
than to do the opposite of the wrong thing ? Surelj it 
will be generous, and even heroic, to wdiollj acquit the 
wrong-doer, and even to cherish him for a bosom friend. 
So the pendulum swings over to the opposite extreme, 
and you land in the secondary vulgar error. I do not 
mean to say that in practice many persons are likely to 
thus bend the twig backwards ; but it is no small evil to 
think that it would be a right thing, and a fine thing, to 
do even that which you never intend to do. So you 
write an essay, or even a book, the gist of which is that 
it is a grand thing to select for a friend and guide the 
human being wdio has done you signal injustice and 
harm. Over that book, if it be a prettily written tale, 
many young ladies will weep : and though without the 
faintest intention of imitating your hero's behaviour, they 
will think that it would be a fine thing if they did so. 
And it is a great mischief to pervert the moral judg- 
ment and falsely to excite the moral feelings. You for- 
get that wTong is wrong, though it be done against your- 
selfj and that you have no right to acquit the wrong to 
yourself as though it were no wrong at all. That lies 
beyond your province. You may forgive the personal 
offence, but it does not rest with you to acquit the guilt. 
You have no right to confuse moral distinctions by prac- 
tically saying that wrong is not wrong, because it is done 
against you. All wrong is against very many things 
and very grave things, besides being against you. It is 
not for you to speak' in the name of God and the uni- 
verse. You may not wish to say much about the injury 
done to yourself, but there it is ; and as to the choosing 
for your friend the man who has greatly injured you, in 
T^ost cases such a choice would be a very unwise one, 



AND CHARYBDIS. 79 

because in most cases it would amount to this — that you 
should select a man for a certain post mainly because he 
has shown himself possessed of qualities which unfit him 
for that post. Thai surely would be very foolish. If 
you had to appoint a postman, would you choose a man 
because he had no legs ? And what is very foolish can 
never be very magnanimous. 

The riarht course to follow lies between the two which 
have been set out. The man who has done wrong to 
you is still a wrong-doer. The question you have to 
consider is, What ought your conduct to be towards a 
wrong-doer ? Let there be no harbour given to any 
feeling of personal revenge. But remember that it is 
your duty to disapprove what is wrong, and that it is 
wisdom not too far to trust a man who has proved him- 
self unworfJiy to be trusted. I have no feeling of selfish 
bitterness against the person who deceived me deliber- 
ately and grossly, yet I cannot but judge that deliberate 
and gross deceit is bad ; and I cannot but judge that the 
person who deceived me once might, if tempted, deceive 
me again : so he shall not have the opportunity. I look 
at the horse which a friend offers me for a short ride, 
I discern upon the knees of the animal a certain slight 
but unmistakeable roughness of the hair. That horse 
has been down ; and if I mount that horse at all (which 
I shall not do except in a case of necessity), I shall ride 
him with a tight rein, and with a sharp look-out for roll- 
ing stones. 

Another matter in regard to which Scylla and Charyb- 
dis are very discernible, is the fashion in which human 
beings think and speak of the good or bad qualities of 
heir friends. 



80 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

The primary tendency here is to bhndness to the 
faults of a friend, and over-estimate of his virtues and 
quahfications. Most people are disposed extravagantly 
to over-value anything belonging to or connected with 
themselves. A farmer tells you that there never were 
such turnips as his turnips ; a schoolboy thinks that the 
vs'orld cannot show boys so clever as those with whom 
e is competing for the first place in his class ; a clever 
student at college tells you what magnificent fellows are 
certain of his compeers — how sure they are to become 
great men in life. Talk of Tennyson ! You have not 
read Smith's prize poem. Talk of Macaulay ! Ah, if 
you could see Brown's prize essay ! A mother tells you 
(fathers are generally less infatuated) how her boy was 
beyond comparison the most distinguished and clever in 
his class — how he stood quite apart from any of the 
others. Your eye happens to fall a day or two after- 
wards upon the prize-list advertised in the newspapers, 
and you discover that (curiously) the most distinguished 
and clever boy in that particular school is rewarded with 
the seventh prize. I dare say you may have met with 
families in which there existed the most absurd and pre- 
posterous belief as to their superiority, social, intellectual, 
and moral, above other families which were as good or 
better. And it is to be admitted, that if you are happy 
enough to have a friend whose virtues and qualifications 
are really high, your primary tendency will probably be 
to fancy him a great deal cleverer, wiser, and better than 
he really is, and to imagine that he possesses no faults at 
all. The over-estimate of his good qualities will be the 
result of your seeing them constantly, and having their 
excellence much pressed on your attention, while from 
not knowing so well other men who are quite as good, 



AND CHARTBDIS. 81 

you are led to think that those good qualities are more 
rare and excellent than in fact they are. And you may 
possibly regard it as a duty to shut your eyes to the 
faults of those who are dear to you, and to persuade 
yourself, against your judgment, that they have no faults 
or none worth thinking of. One can imagine a child 
painfully struggling to be blind to a parent's errors, and 
thinking it undutiful and wicked to admit the existence 
of that which is too evident. And if you know well a 
really good and able man, you will very naturally think 
his goodness and his ability to be relatively much greater 
than they are. For goodness and ability are in truth 
very noble things : the more you look at them the more 
you will feel this : and it is. natural to judge that what is • 
so noble cannot be very common ; whereas in fact there 
is much more good in this world than we are ready to 
believe. If you find an intelligent person who believes 
that some particular author is by far the best in the lan- 
guage, or that some particular composer's music is by far 
the finest, or that some particular preacher is by far the 
most eloquent and useful, or that some particular river 
has by far the finest scenery, or that some particular sea- 
side place has by far the most bracing and exhilarating 
air, or that some particular magazine is ten thousand 
miles ahead of all competitors, the simple explanation in 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is this — that the 
honest individual who holds these overstrained opinions 
knows a great deal better than he knows any others, that 
author, that music, that preacher, that river, that sea- 
side place, that magazine. He knows how good they 
are : and not having much studied the merits of compet- 
ing things, he does not know that these are very nearly 
as good. 

6 



82 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

But I do not think that there is any subject whatevei 
in regard to which it is so capricious and arbitrary 
whether you shall run it into Scylla or into Charybdis. 
It depends entirely on how it strikes the mind, whether 
you shall go off a thousand miles to the right or a thou- 
sand miles to the left. You know, if you fire a rifle-bullet 
at an iron-coated ship, the bullet, if it impinge upon the 
iron plate at A, may glance away to the west, while if 
it impinge upon the iron plate at B, only an inch distant 
from A, it may glance off towards the directly opposite 
point of the compass. A very little thing makes all the 
difference. You stand in the engine-room of a steamer ; 
you admit the steam to the cylinders, and the paddles 
turn ahead ; a touch of a lever, you admit the selfsame 
steam to the selfsame cylinders, and the paddles turn 
astern. It is so oftentimes in the moral world. The 
turning of a straw decides whether the engines shall 
work forward or backward. 

Now, given a friend, to whom you are very warmly 
attached : it is a toss-up whether your affection for your 
friend shall make you, 

1. Quite blind to his faults; or, 

2. Acutely and painfully alive to his faults. 

Sincere affection may impel either way. Your friend, 
for instance, makes a speech at a public dinner. He 
makes a tremendously bad speech. Now, your lov^e for 
him m^y lead you either 

1. To fancy that his speech is a remarkably good 
one ; or, 

2. To feel acutely how bad his speech is, and to wish 
you could sink through the floor for very shame. 

If you did not care for him at all, you would not mind 
a bit whether he made a fool of himself or not. But if 



AND CHARYBDIS. 83 

you really care for him, and if the speech be really very 
bad, and if you are competent to judge whether speeches 
in general be bad or not, I do not see how you can es- 
cape falling either into Scylla or Chary bdis. And ac- 
cordingly, while there are families in which there exists 
a preposterous over-estimate of the talents and acquire- 
ments of their several members, there are other families 
in which the rifle-bullet has glanced off in the opposite 
direction, and in which there exists a depressing and un- 
reasonable under-estimate of the talents and acquire- 
ments of their several members. I have known such a 
thing as a family in which certain boys during their early 
education had it ceaselessly drilled into them that they 
were the idlest, stupidest, and most ignorant boys in the 
world. The poor little fellows grew^ up under that gloomy 
belief: for conscience is a very artificial thing, and you 
may bring up very good boys in the belief that they are 
very bad. At length, happily, they went to a great pub- 
lic school ; and like rockets they went up forthwith to 
the top of their classes, and never lost their places there. 
From school they went to the university, and there won 
honours more eminent than had ever been won before. 
It will not surprise people who know much of human 
nature, to be told that through this brilliant career of 
school and college work the home belief in their idleness 
and ignorance continued unchanged, and that hardly at 
its end was the toil-worn senior wrangler regarded as 
other than an idle and useless blockhead. Now, the af- 
fection which prompts the under-estimate may be quite 
as real and deep as that which prompts the over-esti- 
mate, but its manifestation is certainly the less amiable 
and pleasing. I have known a successful author whose 
relatives never believed, till the reviews assured them of 



84 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

it, that his writings were anything but contemplible and 
discreditable trash, 

I have been speaking of an honest though erroneous 
estimate of the quahties of one's friends, rather than of 
any expression of that estimate. The primary tendency 
is to an over-estimate ; the secondary tendency is to an 
under-estimate. A commonplace man thinks there never 
was mortal so wise and good as the friend he values ; a 
man who is a thousandth part of a degree less common- 
place resolves that he will keep clear of that error, and 
accordingly he feels bound to exaggerate tlie failings of 
his friend and to extenuate his good qualities. He 
thinks that a friend's judgment is very good and sound, 
and that he may well rely upon it ; but for fear of show- 
ing it too much regard, he probably shows it too little. 
He thinks that in some dispute his friend is right ; but 
for fear of being partial he decides that his friend is 
wrong. It is obvious that in any instance in which a 
man, seeking to avoid the primary error of over-estimat- 
ing his friend, falls into the secondary of under-estimating 
him, he will (if any importance be attached to his judg- 
ment) damage his friend's character; for most people 
will conclude that he is saying of his friend the best that 
can be said ; and that if even he admits that there is so 
little to approve about his friend, there must be very 
little indeed to approve : whereas the truth may be, that 
he is saying the worst that can be said — that no man 
could with justice give a worse picture of the friend's 
character. 

Not very far removed from this pair of vulgar errors 
Bland the following : 

The primary vulgar error i:=, to set up as an infallible 



AND CHARYBDIS. 85 

oracle one whom we regard as wise — to regard any 
question as settled finally if we know what is his opinion 
upon it. You remember the man in the Spectator who 
was always quoting the sayings of Mr. Nisby. There 
was a report in London that the Grand Vizier was dead. 
The good man was uncertain whether to believe the re- 
port or not. He went and talked with Mr. Nisby and 
returned with his mind reassured. Now, he enters in 
his diary that ' the Grand Vizier was certainly dead.' 
Considering the weakness of the reasoning powers of 
many people, there is something pleasing after all in 
this tendency to look round for somebody stronger upon 
whom they may lean. It is wise and natural in a scar- 
let-runner to climb up something, for it could not grow 
up by itself; and for practical purposes it is well that in 
each household there should be a little Pope, whose dicta 
on all topics shall be unquestionable. It saves what is 
to many people the painful effort of making up their 
mind what they are to do or to think. It enables them 
to think or act with much greater decision and confi- 
dence. Most men have always a lurking distrust of 
their own judgment, unless they find it confirmed by that 
of somebody else. There are very many decent com- 
monplace people who, if they had been reading a book 
or article and had been thinking it very fine, would, if 
you were resolutely and loudly to declare in their hear- 
ing that it was wretched trash, begin to think that it was 
wretched trash too. 

The primary vulgar error, then, is to regard as an 
oracle one whom we esteem as wise ; and the secondary, 
the Charybdis. opposite to this Scylla, is, to entertain 
an excessive dread of being too much led by one whom 
we esteem as wise. I mean an honest candid dread. I 



86 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

do not mean a petted, wrong-headed, pragmatical deter- 
mination to let him see that you can think for yourself. 
You see, my friend, I don't suppose you to be a self- 
conceited fool. You remember how Presumption, in the 
Pilgrim^s Progress, on being ojffered some good advice, 
cut his kind adviser short by declaring that Every tub 
must stand on its own bottom. We have all known men 
young and old, who, upon being advised to do something 
which they knew they ought to do, would, out of pure 
perversity and a wrong-headed independence, go and do 
just the opposite thing. The secondary error of which I 
am now thinking is that of the man who honestly dreads 
making too much of the judgment of any mortal: and 
who, acting from a good intention, probably goes wrong 
in the same direction as the wrong-headed conceited man. 
Now, don't you know that to such an extent does this 
morbid fear of trusting too much to any mortal go in 
some men, that in their practical belief you would think 
that the fact of any man being very wise was a reason 
why his judgment should be set aside as unworthy of 
consideration ; and more particularly, that the fact of 
any man being supposed to be a powerful reasoner, was 
quite enough to show that all he says is to go for noth- 
ing ? You are quite aware how jauntily some people 
use this last consideration, to sweep away at once all 
the reasons given by an able and ingenious speaker or 
writer. And it cuts the ground effectually from under 
his feet. You state an opinion, somewhat opposed to 
that commonly received. An honest, stupid person 
meets it with a surprised stare. You tell him (I am re- 
cording what I have myself witnessed) that you have 
been reading a work on the subject by a certain prelate : 
you state as well as you can the arguments wdiich are 



AND CHARYBDIS. 87 

set forth by the distinguished prelate. These arguments 
seem of great weight. They deserve at least to be care- 
fully considered. They seem to prove the novel opinioQ 
to be just : they assuredly call on candid minds to pon- 
der the whole matter well before relapsing into the old 
current way of thinking. Do you expect that the hon- 
est, stupid person will judge thus ? If so, you are mis- 
taken. He is not shaken in the least by all these strong 
reasons. The man who has set these reasons forth is 
known to be a master of logic : that is good ground why 
all his reasons should count for nothing. Oh, says the 
stupid, honest person, we all know that the Archbishop 
can prove anything ! And so the whole thing is finally 
settled. 

I have a considerable list of instances in which the 
reaction from an error on one side of the line of right, 
lands in error equally distant from the line of right on 
the other side : but it is needless to go on to illustrate 
these at length ; the mere mention of them will suffice 
to suggest many thoughts to the intelligent reader. A 
primary vulgar error, to which very powerful minds 
have frequently shown a strong tendency, is bigoted in- 
tolerance : intolerance in politics, in religion, in ecclesias- 
tical affairs, in morals, in anything. You may safely say 
that nothing but most unreasonable bigotry would lead a 
Tory to say that all Whigs are scoundrels, or a Whig to 
say that all Tories are bloated tyrants or crawling syco- 
phants. I must confess that, in severe reason, it is im- 
possible entirely to justify the Churchman who holds 
that all Dissenters are extremely bad ; though (so does 
inveterate prepossession warp the intellect) I have also 
to admit that it appears to me that for a Dissenter to 
hold that there is little or no good in the Church is a 



88 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

great deal worse. There is something fine, however, 
about a heartily intolerant man : you like him, though 
you disapprove of him. Even if I were inclined tc 
Whiggery, I should admire the downright dictum of Dr. 
Johnson, that the devil was the first Whig. Even if 1 
were a Nonconformist, I should like Sydney Smith tliQ 
better for the singular proof of his declining strength 
which he once adduced : * I do believe,' he said, ' that 
if you were to put a knife into my hand, I should not 
have vigour enough to stick it into a Dissenter ! ' The 
secondary error in this respect is a latitudinarian liber- 
ality which regards truth and falsehood as matters of 
indifference. Genuine liberality of sentiment is a good 
thing, and difficult as it is good : but much liberality, 
political and religious, arises really from the fact, that 
the liberal man does not care a rush about the matter 
in debate. It is very easy to be tolerant in a case in 
which you have no feeling whatever either way. The 
Churchman who does not mind a bit whether the Church 
stands or falls, has no difficulty in tolerating the enemies 
and assailants of the Church. It is different with a man 
who holds the existence of a national Establishment as a 
vital matter. And I have generally remarked that when 
clergymen of the Church profess extreme catholicity of 
spirit, and declare that they do not regard it as a thing 
of the least consequence whether a man be Churchman 
or Dissenter, intelliorent Nonconformists receive such 
protestations with much contempt, and (possibly with in- 
justics) suspect their utterer of hypocrisy. If you 
really care much about any principle ; and if you regard 
it as of essential importance ; you cannot help feeling a 
strong impulse to intolerance of those who decidedly and 
actively differ from you. 



AND CHARYBDIS. 89 

Here are some further vulgar errors, primary and 
secondary : 

Primary — Idleness, and excessive self-indulgence ; 
Secondary — Penances, and self-inflicted tortures. 

Primary — Swalloiaing whole all that is said or done 
by one's party ; 

Secondary — Dread of quite agreeing, or quite dis- 
agreeing on any point with any one ; and trying to keep 
at exactly an equal distance from each. 

Primary — Following the fashion with indiscriminate 
ardour ; 

Secondary — Finding a merit in singularity, as such. 

Primary — Being quite captivated with thought which 
Is striking and showy, but not sound ; 

Secondary — Concluding that whatever is sparkling 
must be unsound. 

I hardly know which tendency of the following is the 

primary, and which the secondary ; but I am sure that 

both exist. It may depend upon the district of country, 

and the age of the thinker, which of the two is the ac- 

» lion and which the reaction : 

1. Thinking a clergyman a model' of perfection, be- 
cause he is a stout dashing fellow who plays at cricket 
and goes out fox-hunting ; and, generally, who flies in 
the face of all conventionalism ; 

2. Thinking a clergyman a model of perfection be- 
cause he is of very grave and decorous deportment ; 
never plays at cricket, and never goes out fox-hunting ; 
and, generally, conforms carefully to all the little proprie- 
ties. 



90 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

1. TliinliiDg a bishop a model prelate because he has 
no stiffness or ceremony about him, but talks frankly to 
everybody, and puts all who approach him at their 
ease ; 

2. Thinking a bishop a model prelate because he nev- 
er descends from his dignity ; never forgets that he is a 
bishop, and keeps all who approach him in their propel 
places. 

1. Thinking the Anglican Church service the best, be- 
cause it is so decorous, solemn, and dignified ; 

2. Thinking the Scotch Church service the best, be- 
cause it is so simple and so capable of adaptation to all 
circumstances which may arise. 

1. Thinking an artisan a sensible right-minded man, 
knowing his station, because he is always very respectful 
in his demeanour to the squire, and great folks gener- 
ally ; 

2. Thinking an artisan a fine, manly, independent fel- 
low, because he is always much less respectful in his 
demeanour to the squire than he is to other people. 

1. Thinking it a fine thing to be a fast, reckless, swag- 
gering, drinking, swearing reprobate : Being ashamed 
of the imputation of being a well-behaved and (above all) 
a pious and conscientious young man : Thinking it manly 
to do wrong, and washy to do right ; 

2. Thinking it a despicable thing to be a fast, reckleas, 
swaggering, drinking, swearing reprobate : Thinking it 
h manly to do right, and shameful to do wrong. 

\. That a young man should begin his letters to hia 



AND CHARYBDIS. 91 

father with Honoured Sir ; and treat the old gentle* 
man with extraordinary deference upon all occasions : 

2. That a young man should begin his remarks to his 
father on any subject with, I say, Governor ; and 
treat the old gentleman upon all occasions with no defer- 
ence at all. 

But indeed, intelligent reader, the SAving of the pendu- 
lum is the type of the greater amount of human opinion 
and human feeling. In individuals, in communities, in 
parishes, in little country towns, in great nations, from 
hour to hour, from week to week, from century to centu- 
ry, the pendulum swings to and fro. From Tes on the 
one side to No on the other side of almost all conceivable 
questions, the pendulum swings. Sometimes it swings 
over from Yes to No in a few hours or days ; sometimes 
it takes centuries to pass from the one extremity to the 
other. In feeling, in taste, in judgment, in the grandest 
matters and the least, the pendulum swings. From Pop- 
ery to Puritanism ; from Puritanism back towards Pop- 
ery ; from Imperialism to Republicanism, and back tow- 
ards Imperialism again ; from Gothic architecture to 
Palladian, and from Palladian back to Gothic; from 
hooped petticoats to drapery of the scantiest, and from 
that backwards to the multitudinous crinoline; from cry- 
ing up the science of arms to crying it down, and back ; 
from the schoolboy telling you that his companion Brown 
is the jolliest fellow, to the schoolboy telling you that his 
companion Brown is a beast, and back again ; from very 
high carriages to very low ones and back ; from very 
short horsetails to very long ones and back again — the 
pendulum swings. In matters of serious judgment it is 
comparatively easy to discern the rationale of this oscil- 



92 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

lation from side to side. It is that the evils of what ia 
present are strongly felt, while the evils of what is ab* 
sent are forgotten ; and so, when the pendulum has 
swung over to A, the evils of A send it flying over to B, 
while when it reaches B the evils of B repel it again to 
A. In matters of feeling it is less easy to discover the 
how and why of the process : we can do no more than 
take refuge in the general belief that nature lovea 
the swing of the pendulum. There are people who at 
one time have an excessive affection for some friend, and 
at another take a violent disgust at him : and who (though 
sometimes permanently remaining at the latter point) 
oscillate between these positive and negative poles. You, 
being a sensible man, would not feel very happy if some 
men were loudly crying you up : for you would be very 
sure that in a little while they would be loudly crying 
you down. If you should ever happen to feel for one 
day an extraordinary lightness and exhilaration of spir- 
its, you will know that you must pay for all this the 
price of corresponding depression — the hot fit must be 
counterbalanced by the cold. Let us thank God that 
there are beliefs and sentiments as to which the pendu- 
lum does not swing, though even in these I have known 
it do so. I have known the young girl who appeared 
thoroughly good and pious, who devoted herself to works 
of charity, and (with even an over-scrupulous spirit) 
eschewed vain company : and who by and bye learned to 
laugh at all serious things, and ran into the utmost ex- 
tremes of giddiness and extravagant gaiety. And not 
merely should all of us be thankful if we feel that in 
regard to the gravest sentiments and beliefs our mind and 
heart i-emain year after year at the same fixed point : I 
think we should be thanliful if we find that as regarda 



AND CHARYBDIS. 93 

our favourite books and authors our taste remains un- 
changed ; that the calm judgment of our middle age ap- 
proves the preferences of ten years since, and that these 
gather strength as time gives them the witchery of old 
remembrances and associations. You enthusiastically 
admired Byron once, you estimate him very differently 
now. You once thought Festus finer than Paradise Lost, 
but you have swung away from that. But for a good 
many years you have held by Wordsworth, Shakspeare, 
and Tennyson, and this taste you are not likely to out- 
grow. It is very curious to look over a volume which 
we once thought magnificent, enthralling, incomparable, 
and to wonder how on earth we ever cared for that stilted 
rubbish. No doubt the pendulum swings quite as decid- 
edly to your estimate of yourself as to your estimate of 
any one else. It would be nothing at all to have other 
people attacking and depreciating your writings, sermons, 
and the like, if you yourself had entire confidence in 
them. The mortifying thing is when your own taste and 
judgment say w^orse of your former productions than 
could be said by the most unfriendly critic ; and the 
dreadful thought occurs, that if you yourself to-day think 
so badly of what you wrote ten years since, it is proba- 
ble enough that on this day ten years hence (if you live 
to see it) you may think as badly of what you are writ- 
ing to-day. Let us hope not. Let us trust that at length 
a standard of taste and judgment is reached from which 
we shall not ever materially swing away. Yet the pen- 
dulum w^ill never be quite arrested as to your estimate of 
yourself. Now and then you will think yourself a block- 
head : by and bye you will think yourself very clever; 
and your judgment will oscillate between these opposite 
poles of belief. Sometimes you will think that your 



94 CONCERNING SCYLLA 

house is remarkablj comfortable, sometimes that it i? sn- 
endurablj uncomfortable ; sometimes you will think that 
your place in hfe is a very dignitied and important one, 
sometimes that it is a very poor and insignificant one ; 
sometimes you will think that some misfortune or disap- 
pointment which has befallen you is a very crushing one ; 
sometimes you will think that it is better as it is. Ah, 
my brother, it is a poor, weak, wayward thing, the hu- 
man heart ! 

You know, of course, how the pendulum of public 
opinion swings backwards and forwards. The truth lies 
somewhere about the middle of the arc it describes, in 
most cases. You know how the popularity of political 
m€n oscillates, from A, the point of greatest popularity, 
to B, the point of no popularity at all. Think of Lord 
Brougham. Once the pendulum swung far to tlie right : 
he was the most popular man in Britain. Then, for 
many years, the pendulum swung far to the left, into the 
cold regions of unpopularity, loss of influence, and oppo- 
sition benches. And now, in his last days, the pendulum 
has come over to the right again. So with lesser men. 
When the new clergyman comes to a country parish, how 
high his estimation ! Never was there preacher so im- 
pressive, pastor so diligent, man so frank and agreeable. 
By and bye his sermons are middling, his diligence mid- 
dling ; his manners rather stiff or rather too easy. In a 
year or two the pendulum rests at its proper point : and 
from that time onward the parson gets, in most cases, 
very nearly the credit he deserves. The like oscillation 
of public opinion and feeling exists in the case of unfa- 
vourable as of favourable judgments. A man commits a 
great crime His guilt is thought awful. There is a 
general outcry for his condign punishment. He is sen- 



AND CHARYBUIS. 95 

tenced to be hanged. In a few days the tide begins to 
turn. His crime was not so great. He had met great 
provocation. His education had been neglected. He 
deserves pity rather than reprobation. Petitions are 
got up that he should be let off; and largely signed by 
the self-same folk who were loudest in the outcry against 
him. And instead of this fact, that those folk were the 
keenest against the criminal, being received (as it ought) 
as proof that their opinion is worth nothing at all, many 
will receive it as proof that their opinion is entitled to 
special consideration. The principle of the pendulum in 
the matter of criminals is well understood by the Old 
Bailey practitioners of New York and their worthy cli- 
ents. When a New Yorker is sentenced to be handed, he 
remains as a cool as cucumber ; for the New York law is, 
that a year must pass between the sentence and the ex- 
ecution. And long before the year passes, the public 
sympathy has turned in the criminal's favour. Endless 
petitions go up for his pardon. Of course he gets off. 
And indeed it is not improbable that he may receive a 
public testimonial. It cannot be denied that the natural 
transition in the popular feeling is from applauding a 
man to hanging him, and from hanging a man to 
applauding him. 

Even so does the pendulum swing, and the world ruo 
away I 




CHAPTER IV. 

CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

ANY persons do not like to go near a 
churchyard : some do not like even to hear 
a churchyard mentioned. Many others feel 
an especial interest in that quiet place — an 
interest which is quite unconnected with any personal 
associations with it. A great deal depends upon habit ; 
and a great deals turns, too, on whether the churchyard 
which we know best is a locked-up, deserted, neglected 
place, all grown over with nettles ; or a spot not too 
much retired, open to all passers-by, with trimly-mown 
grass and neat gravelled walks. I do not sympathize 
with the taste which converts a burying-place into a- 
flower-garden or a fashionable lounge for thoughtless 
people : let it be the true ' country churchyard,' only 
with some appearance of being remembered and cared 
for. For myself, though a very commonplace person 
and not at all sentimentally inclined, I have a great liking 
for a churchyard. Hardly a day passes on which I do 
not go and walk up and down for a little in that which 
surrounds my church. Probably some people may re- 
gard me as extremely devoid of occupation, when I con- 
fess that daily, after breakfast, and before sitting down to 
my work (which is pretty hard, though they may not 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 97 

think so), 1 walk slowly down to the churchyard, which is 
a couple of hundred yards oiF, and there pace about for 
a few minutes, looking at the old graves and the mossy 
stones. Nor is this only in summer-time, when the sward 
is white with daisies, when the ancient oaks around the 
gray wall are leafy and green, when the passing river 
Hashes bright through their openings and runs chiming 
over the warm stones, and when the beautiful hills that 
surround the quiet spot at a little distance are flecked 
■with summer light and shade ; but in winter too, when 
the bare branches look sharp against the frosty sky, and 
the graves look like wavelets on a sea of snow. Now, if 
I were anxious to pass myself off upon my readers as a 
great and thoughtful man, I might here give an account 
of the profound thoughts which I think in my daily mus- 
ings in my pretty churchyard. But, being an essentially 
commonplace person (as I have no doubt about nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of my read- 
ers also are), I must here confess that generally I walk 
about the churchyard, thinking and feeling nothing very 
particular. I do not believe that ordinary jjeople, when 
worried by some little care, or pressed down by some 
little sorrow, have only to go and muse in a churchyard 
in order to feel how trivial and transient such cares and 
porrows are, and how very little they ought to vex us. 
To commonplace mortals, it is the sunshine within the 
breast that does most to brighten ; and the thing that has 
most power to darken is the shadow there. And the 
scenes and teachings of external nature have, practically, 
very little effect indeed. And so, when musing in the 
churchyard, nothing grand, heroical, philosophical, or tre- 
mendous ev'Cr suggests itself to me. I look with pleasure 
at the neatly cut walks and grass. I peep in at a window 
7 



98 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

of the church, and think how I am to finish my sermon 
for next Sunday. I read over the inscriptions on the 
stones which mark where seven of my predecessors sleep. 
I look vacantly at the lichens and moss which have over- 
grown certain tombstones three or four centuries old. 
And occasionally I think of what and where I shall be, 
when the village mason, whistling cheerfully at his task, 
shall cut out my name and years on the stone which will 
mark my last resting-place. But all these, of course, are 
commonplace thoughts, just what would occur to anybody 
else, and really not worth repeating. 

And yet, although ' death, and the house appointed for 
all living,' form a topic which has been treated by innu- 
merable writers, from the author of the book of Job to 
Mr. Dickens ; and although the subject might well be 
vulgarized by having been, for many a day, the stock 
resort of every commonplace aimer at the pathetic ; still 
the theme is one which never can grow old. And the 
experience and the heart of most men convert into touch- 
ing eloquence even the poorest formula of set phrases 
about the tremendous Fact. Nor are we able to repress 
a strong interest in any account of the multitude of fash- 
ions in which the mortal part of man has been disposed 
of, after the great change has passed upon it. In a vol- 
ume entitled God's Acre, written by a lady, one Mrs. 
Stone, and published a year or two since, you may find 
a great amount of curious information upon such points : 
and after thinking of the various ways of burial described, 
I think you will return with a feeling of home and of re- 
lief to the quiet English country churchyard. I shoulo 
think that the shocking and revolting description of the 
burning of the remains of Shelley, published by Mr. 
Trelawney, in his Last Days of Shelhy and Byron, wili 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 99 

go far to destroy any probability of the introduction of 
cremation in this country, notwithstanding the ingenuity 
and the eloquence of the little treatise published about 
two years ago by a Member of the College of Surgeons, 
whose gist you will understand from its title, which is 
Burning the Dead ; or, Urn-Sepulture Religiously, So- 
cially, and Generally considered ; with Suggestions for a 
Revival of the Practice, as a Sanitary Measure. Tho 
choice lies between burning and burying : and the latter 
being universally accepted in Britain, it remains that it 
be carried out in the way most decorous as regards the 
deceased, and most soothing to the feelings of surviving 
friends. Every one has seen burying-places of all con- 
ceivable kinds, and every one knows how prominent a 
feature they form in the English landscape. There is 
the dismal corner in the great city, surrounded by black- 
ened walls, where scarce a blade of grass will grow, and 
where the whole thing is foul and pestilential. There is 
the ideal country churchyard, like that described by 
Gray, where the old elms and yews keep watch over the 
graves where successive generations of simple rustics 
have found their last resting-place, and where in the twi- 
light the owls hoot from the tower of the ivy-covered 
church. There is the bare enclosure, surrounded by 
four walls, and without a tree, far up the lonely High- 
land hill-side ; and more lonely still, the little gray stone, 
rising above the purple heather, where rude letters, 
touched up by Old Mortality's hands, tell that one, prob- 
ably two or three, rest beneath, who were done to death 
for what they firmly believed was their Redeemer's cause, 
by Claverhouse or Dalyell. There is the churchyard 
by the bleak sea-shore, where coffins have been laid 
bare by the encroaching waves ; and the niche in ca 

LOFC. 



100 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

thedral crypt, or the vault under the church's floor. I 
cannot conceive anything more irreverent than the Amer- 
ican fashion of burying in unconsecrated earth, each 
family having its own place of interment in the corner 
of its own garden : unless it be the crotchet of the silly 
old peer, who spent the last years of his life in erecting 
near his castle-door, a preposterous building, the progress 
of which he watched day by day with the interest of a 
man who had worn out all other interest, occasionally 
lying down in the stone coffin which he had caused to be 
prepared, to make sure that it would fit him. I feel sorry, 
too, for the poor old Pope, who when he dies is laid on 
a shelf above a door in St. Peter's, where he remains 
till the next Pope dies, and then is put out of the way 
to makf. room for him ; nor do I at all envy the noble 
who has his family vault filled with coffins covered with 
velvet and gold, occupied exclusively by corpses of good 
quality. It is better surely to be laid, as Allan Cun- 
ningham wished, where we shall ' not be built over ; ' 
where ' the wind shall blow and the daisy grow upon our 
grave.' Let it be among our kindred, indeed, in accor- 
dance with the natural desire ; but not on dignified 
shelves, not in aristocratic vaults, but lowly and humbly, 
where the Christian dead sleep for the Resurrection. 
Most people Avill sympathize so far with Beattie, though 
his lines show that he was a Scotchman, and lived where 
there are not many trees : — 

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the dowB, 

Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, 

With here and there a violet bestroAvn, 

Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring ■wave ; 

And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave I 

But it depends entirely upon individual associations 



CONGER J^ING CHURCHYAKDS. 101 

and fancies where one would wish to rest after life's fitful 
fever: and I have hardly ever been more deeply im- 
pressed than by certain lines which I cut out of an old 
newspaper when I was a boy, and which set out a choice 
far diiferent from that of The Minstrel. They are writ- 
ten by Mr. Westwood, a true poet, though not known as 
he deserves to be. Here they are : — 

Not there, not there ! 
Not iu that nook, that ve deem so faif ; — 
Little reck I of the blue bright sky, 
And the stream that floweth so murmuringly, 
And the bending boughs, and the breezy air — 

Not there, good friends, not there ! 

In the city churchyard, where the grass 
Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray 
Of that self-same sun doth find its way 
Through the heaped-up houses' serried mass — 
"Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng 
And the clatter of wheels as they rush along — 
Or the plash of the rain, or the wind's hoarse cry, 
Or the busy tramp of the passer-by. 
Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air — 

Good friends, let it be there ! * 

I am old, my friends — I am very old — 
Fourscore and five — and bitter cold 
Were that air on the hill-side far away ; * 
Eighty full years, content, I trow, 
Have I lived in the home where ye see me now, 
And trod those dark streets day by day. 
Till my soul doth love them ; I love them all, 
Each battered pavement, and blackened wall, 
Each court and corner. Good sooth ! to me 
They are all comely and fair to see — 
They have old faces — each one doth tell 
A tale of its own, that doth like me well — 
Sad or merry, as it may be. 
From the quaint old Jjook of my history. 
And, friends, when this weary pain is past. 
Fain would I lay me to rest at last 



102 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

In their ven^ midst ; — full sure am I, 
How dark soever be earth and sky, 
I shall sleep softly — I shall know 
That the things I loved so here below 
Are abt ut me still — so never care 
That my last home looketh all bleak and bare — 
Good friends, let it be there! 

Some persons appear to think that it argues strengtJi 
of mind and freedom from unworthy prejudice, to profess 
great indifference as to what becomes of their mortal part 
after they die. I have met with men who talked in a 
vapouring manner about leaving their bodies to be dis- 
sected ; and who evidently enjoyed the sensation w-hich 
such sentiments produced among simple folk. Whenever 
I hear any man talk in this way, my politeness, of course, 
prevents my telling him that he is an uncommonly sillv 
person ; but it does not prevent my thinking him one. 
It is a mistake to imagine that the soul is the entire man. 
Human nature, alike here and hereafter, consists of soul 
and body in union ; and the body is therefore justly en- 
titled to its own degree of thought and care. But the 
point, indeed, is not one to be argued; it is, as it ap- 
pears to me, a matter of intuitive judgment and instinc- 
tive feeling ; and I apprehend that this feeling and judg* 
ment have never appeared more strongly than in the 
noblest of our race. I hold by Burke, who wrote, ' I 
should like that ray dust should mingle with kindled 
dust ; the good old expression, " family burying-ground," 
has something pleasing in it, at least to me.' Mrs. Stone 
quotes Lady Murray's account of the death of her mother, 
the celebrated Grissell Baillie, which shows that that 
«trong-minded and noble-hearted woman felt the natural 
4esire : — 

The next day she called me: gave directions about some few things 



COXCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 103 

Baiil she wished to be caiTied home to lie by my father, but that per- 
haps it would be too much trouble and inconvenience to us at that 
season, therefore left me to do as I pleased; but that, in a black purse 
in her cabinet, 1 would find money sufficient to do it, which she had 
kept by her for that use, that whenever it happened, it might not 
straiten us. She added, ' I have now no more to say or do : ' tenderly 
embraced me, and laid down her head upon the pillow, and spoke little 
after that. 

An instance, at once touching and awful, of care for 
the body after the soul has gone, is furnished by certain 
well-known lines written by a man not commonly re- 
garded as weak-minded or prejudiced ; and engraved by 
his direction on the stone that marks his grave. If I am 
wrong, I am content to go wrong with Shakspeare : 

Grood friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 
To dig the dust enclosed here : 
Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones. 

The most eloquent exposition I know of the religious 
aspect of the question, is contained in the concluding sen- 
tences of Mr. Melvill's noble sermon on the ' Dying Faith 
of Joseph.' I believe my readers will thank me for quot- 
ing it : — 

It is not a Christian thing to die manifesting indifference as to what 
is done with the body. That body is redeemed: not a particle of its 
dust but was bought with drops of Christ's precious blood. That body 
is appointed to a glorious condition ; not a particle of the corruptible 
but what shall put on incorruption; of the mortal that shall not assume 
immortality. The Christian knows this : it is not the part of a Chris- 
tian to seem unmindful of this. He may, therefore, as he departs, speak 
of the place where he would wish to be laid. ' Let me sleep,' he may 
Bay, ' with my father and my mother, with my wife and my children ; 
lay me not here, in this distant land, where my dust cannot mingle 
tvith its kindred. I would be chimed to my grave by my own village 
bell, and have my requiem sung where I was baptized into Christ-' 
Marvel ye at such last words? Wonder ye that one, whose spirit is 
just entering the separate state, should have this caiv for the body 



104 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

which he is about to leave to the worms? Nny, he is a believer uj 
Jesus as ' the Resurrection and the Life : ' this belief prompts hia 
dying words; and it shall have to be said of him as of Joseph, that 
' by faith,' yea, ' by faith,' he ' gave commandment concerning his 
bones ! ' 



If you hold this belief, my reader, you will look at a 
neglected churchyard with much regret ; and you will 
highly approve of all endeavours to make the burying- 
place of the parish as sweet though solemn a spot as can 
be found within it. I have lately read a little tract, by 
Mr. Hill, the Rural Dean of North Frome, in the Dio- 
cese of Hereford, entitled Thoughts on Churches and 
Churchyards, which is well worthy of the attentive peru- 
sal of the country clergy. Its purpose is to furnish prac- 
tical suggestions for the maintenance of decent propriety 
about the church and churchyard. I am not, at present, 
concerned with that part of the tract which relates to 
churches ; but I may remark, in passing, that Mr. Hill's 
views upon that subject appear to me distinguished by 
great good sense, moderation, and taste. He does not 
discourage country clergymen, who have but limited 
means with which to set about ordering and beautifying 
their churches, by suggesting arrangements on too grand 
and expensive a scale : on the contrary, he enters with 
hearty sympathy into all plans for attaining a simple and 
inexpensive seemliness where more cannot be accom- 
plished. And I think he hits with remarkable felicity 
the just mean between an undue and excessive regard to 
the mere externalities of worship, and a puritanical hardi- 
ness and contempt for material aids, desiring, in the words 
of Archbishop Bramhall, that 'all be with due moder- 
ation, so as neither to render religion sordid and slut- 
fish, noi yet light and garish, but comely and venerable. 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 105 

Equally judicious, and equally practical, are Mr. Hill's 
hints as to the ordering of churchyards. He laments 
that churchyards should ever be found where long, rank 
grass, briers, and nettles abound, and where neatly kept 
walks and graves are wanting. He goes on : — 

And yet, how trifling an amount of care and. attention would sufllco 
to render neat, pretty, and pleasant to look upon, that which has of- 
tentimes an unpleasiug, desolate, and painful aspect. A few sheep 
occasionally (or better still, the scythe and shears now and then em- 
ployed), with a trifling attention to the walks, once properly formed 
and gravelled, will suffice, when the fences are duly kept, to make any 
churchyard seemly and neat: a little more than this will make it orna- 
mental and instructive. 

It is possible that many persons might feel that flower-beds and 
phrubberies are not what they would wish to see in a churchyard ; 
they might think they gave too garden-like and adorned a look to so 
solemn and sacred a spot ; persons will not all think alike on such a 
matter : and yet something may be done in this direction with an ef- 
fect which would please everybody. A few trees of the arbor vitse, the 
cypress, and the Irish yew, scattered here and there, with firs in the 
hedge-rows or boundary fences, would be unobjectionable ; while 
wooden baskets, or boxes, placed by the sides of the walks, and filled 
in summer with the fuchsia or scarlet geranium, would give our 
churchyards an exceedingly pretty, and perhaps not unsuitable ap- 
pearance. Little clumps of snowdrops and primroses might also be 
planted here and there; for flowers may fitly spring up, bloom, and 
fade away, in a spot which so impressively tells us of death and resur- 
rection: and where sheep even are never admitted, all these methods 
for beautifying a churchyard may be adopted. Shrubs and flowers on 
and near the graves, as is so universal in Wales,, independentlv of 
their pretty efiect, show a kindly feeling for the memory of those 
whose bodies rest beneath them; and how far to be preferred to those 
enoiTnous and fi-ightful masses of brick or stone which the ccuntiy 
mason has, alas, so plentifully supplied ! 

In the case of a clergyman, a taste for keeping his 
churchyard in becoming order is just like a taste for 
keeping his garden and shrubbery in order : only let 
him begin the work, and the taste will grow. There is 



106 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

latent in the mind of every man, unless he be the most 
untidy and unobservant of the species, a love for well- 
mown grass and for sharply outlined gravel-walks. My 
brethren, credite experto. I did not know that in my 
soul there was a chord that vibrated responsive to trim 
gravel and grass, till I tried, and lo ! it was there. Try 
for yourselves : you do not know, perhaps, the strange 
affinities that exist between material and immaterial na- 
ture. If any youthful clergyman shall read these linos, 
who knows in his conscience that his churchyard-walks 
are grown up with weeds, and the graves covered with 
nettles, upon sight hereof let him summon his man-ser- 
vant, or get a labourer if he have no man-servant. Let 
him provide a reaping-hook and a large new spade. 
These implements will suffice in the meantime. Pro- 
ceed to the churchyard : do not get disheartened at its 
neglected look, and turn away. Begin at the entrance- 
gate. Let all the nettles and long grass for six feet on 
either side of the path be carefully cut down and gath- 
ered into heaps. Then mark out with a line the boun- 
daries of the first ten yards of the walk. Fall to work 
and cut the edges with the spade ; clear away the weeds 
and grass that have overspread the walk, also with the 
spade. In a little time you will feel the fascination of 
the sharp outline of the walk against the grass on each 
side. And I repeat, that to the average human being 
there is something inexpressibly pleasing in that sharp 
outline. By the time the ten yards of walk are cut, you 
will find that you have discovered a new pleasure and a 
new sensation ; and from that day will date a love of tidy 
walks and grass; — and what more is needed to make a 
pretty churchyard ? The fuchsias, geraniums, and so 
forth, are of the nature of luxuries, and they will follow 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 107 

in due time : but grass and gravel are the foundation of 
rustic neatn(;ss and tidiness. 

As for the treatise on Burning the Dead, it is inter- 
esting and eloquent, though I am well convinced thai 
its author has been putting forth labour in vain. I re- 
member the consternation with which I read the adver- 
tisements announcing its pubhcation. I made sure that 
it must be the production of one of those wrong-headed 
individuals who are always proposing preposterous things, 
without end or meaning. Why on earth should we take 
to burning the dead ? What is to be gained by recurring 
to a heathen rite, repudiated by the early Christians, 
who, as Sir Thomas Browne tells us, * stickt not to give 
their bodies to be burnt in their lives, but detested that 
mode after death ? ' And wherefore do anything so hor- 
rible, and so suggestive of cruelty and sacrilege, as to con- 
sign to devouring flames even the unconscious remains of 
a departed friend ? But after reading the essay, I feel 
that the author has a great deal to say in defence of his 
views. I am obliged to acknowledge that in many cases 
important benefits would follow the adoption of urn-sep- 
ulture. The question to be considered is, what is the 
best way to dispose of the mortal part of man when the 
soul has left it ? A first suggestion might be to endeav- 
our to preserve it in the form and features of life ; and, 
accordingly, in many countries and ages, embalming in 
its various modifications has been resorted to. But all 
attempts to prevent the human frame from obeying the 
Creators law of returning to the elements have miser- 
ably failed. And surely it is better a thousand times to 
' bury the dead from our sight,' than to preserve a hide- 
ous and revolting mockery of the beloved form. The 
Egyptian mummies every one has heard of; but the most 



108 CONCEEXING CHURCHY AEDS. 

remarkable instance of embalming in recent times is that 
of the wife of one Martin Van Butcliell, who, by her hus- 
band's desire, was prabalmed in the year 1775, by Dr. 
William Hunter and Mr. Carpenter, and who may be 
seen in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 
London. She was a beautiful woman, and all that skill 
and science could do were done to preserve her in the 
n])pearance of life ; but the result is nothing short of 
shocking and awful. Taking it, then, as admitted, that 
the body must return to the dust from whence it was 
taken, the next question is. How ? How shall dissolu- 
tion take place with due respect to the dead, and with 
least harm to the health and the feelincrs of the livinoj ? 

The two fashions which have been universally used 
are, burial and burning. It has so happened that burial 
has been associated with Christianity, and burning with 
heathenism ; but I shall admit at once that the association 
is not essential, though it would be hard, without very 
weighty reason indeed, to deviate from the long-remem- 
bered ' earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' But 
such weighty reason the author of this treatise declares to 
exist. The system of burial, he says, is productive of 
fearful and numberless evils and dangers to the living. 
In the neighbourhood of any large burying-place, the air 
which the living breathe, and the water which they drink, 
are impregnated with poisons the most destructive of 
liealth and life. Even where the damage done to air and 
water is inappreciable by our senses^ it is a predisposing 
cause of * headache, dysentery, sore throat, and low fever;* 
and it keeps all the population around in a condition in 
v»'hich they are the ready prey of all forms of disease. I 
rihall not shock my readers by relating a host of horrible 
facts, proved by indisputable evidence, which are adduced 



CONCEENIXG CHUKCHYAKDS. 109 

by the surgeon to show the evils of burial : and all these 
evils, he maintains, may be escaped by the revival of 
burning. Four thousand human beings die every hour ; 
and only by that swift and certain method can the vast 
mass of decaying matter which, while decaying, gives off 
the most subtle and searching poisons, be resolved with 
the elements without injury or risk to any one. So con- 
vinced has the French Government become of the evils 
of burial that it has patronized and encouraged one M. 
Bonneau, who proposes that instead of a great city hav- 
ing its neighbouring cemeteries, it should be provided 
with a building called The Sarcophagus, occupying an ele- 
vated situation, to which the bodies of rich and poor should 
be conveyed, and there reduced to ashes by a powerful 
furnace. And then M. Bonneau, Frenchman all over> 
suggests that the ashes of our friends might be preserved 
in a tasteful manner ; the funeral urn, containing these 
ashes, ' replacing on our consoles and mantelpieces the 
ornaments of bronze clocks and china vases now found 
there.' Our author, having shown that burning would save 
us from the dangers of burying, concludes his treatise by 
a Careful description of the manner in which he would 
carry out the burning process. And certainly his plan 
contains as little to shock one as may be, in carrying out 
a system necessarily suggestive of violence and cruelty. 
There is nothing like the repulsiveness of the Hindoo 
^ burning, only half carried out, or even of Mr. Trelawney's 
furnace for burning poor Shelley. I do not remember to 
have lately read anything more ghastly and revolting than 
the entire account of Shelley's cremation. It says much 
for Mr. Trelawney's nerves, that he was able to look on 
at it ; and it was no wonder that it turned Byron sick, 
and that Mr. Leigh Hunt kept beyond the sight of it. I 



110 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDl^. 

intended to have quoted the passage from Mr. Trelaw- 
ney's book, but I really cannot venture to do so. But it 
is right to say that there were very good reasons for re- 
sorting to that melancholy mode of disposing of the poet's 
remains, and that Mr. Trelawney did all he could to ac- 
complish the burning with efficiency and decency : thougl 
tlie whole story makes one feel the great physical difficul 
ties that stand in the way of carrying out cremation suc- 
cessfully. The advocate of urn-sepulture, however, is 
quite aware of thip, and he proposes to use an apparatus 
by which they womW be entirely overcome. It is only 
fair to let him spe?k for himself; and I think the follow- 
ing passage will b^.' read with interest : — 

On a gentle emirirci, surrounded by pleasant grounds, stands a con- 
venient, well-ven'jl'it'-U chapel, with a high spire or steeple. At the 
entrance, vhero sew £ jf the mourners might prefer to take leave of the 
body, are cbum^er. 'o their accommodation. Within the edifice are 
seats for '.nos'.. w'^o /f ilow the remains to the last: there is also an or- 
gan, and r ga>'.er/ f ,t choristers. In the centre of the chapel, embel- 
lished v/itb ap ,ro .riate emblems and devices, is erected a shrine of 
marble, pjn>,«vb'./; like those which cover the ashes of the great and 
mighty ir ou' old cathedrals, the openings being filled with prepared 
plute gUss "Within this — a sufficient space intervening — is an inner 
shriue cr /e:ed with bright non-radiating metal, and within this again 
is 8 covered sarcophagus of tempered fire-clay, with one or more lon- 
gitu'linal slits near the top, extending its whole length. As soon as 
the body is deposited therein, sheets of flame at an immensely high 
temperature rush through the long apertures from end to end, and act- 
ing as a combination of a modified oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, with the 
revarberatory furnace, utterly and completely consume and decompose 
the body, in an incredibly shoi't space of time. Even the large quantity 
of water it contains is decomposed by the extreme heat, and its ele- 
ments, instead of retarding, aid combustion, as is the case in fierce 
conflagrations. The gaseous products of combustion are conveyed 
away by flues ; and means being adopted to consume anything like 
Bmoke, all that is observed from the outside is occasionally a quivering 
transparent ether floating away from the high steeple to mingle with 
the atmosphere. 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. Ill 

At either end cif the sarcophagus is a closely-fitting tire-proof door, 
that farthest from the chapel entrance communicating with a chamber 
which projects into the chapel and adjoins the end of the shrine. Here 
are the attendants, who, unseen, conduct the operation. The door at 
the other end of the sarcophagus, with a corresponding opening in the 
inner and outer shrine, is exactly opposite a slab of marble on which 
the coffin is deposited when brought into the chapel. The funeral ser- 
vice then commences according to any form decided on. At an ap 
pointed signal the end of the coffin, which is placed just within th 
opening in the shrine, is removed, and the body is drawn rapidly bu 
gently and without exposure into the sarcophagus : the sides of the 
coffin, constructed for the purpose, collapse ; and the wooden box is re- 
moved to be burned elsewhere. 

Meantime the body is committed to the flames to be consumed, and 
the words ' ashes to ashes, dust to dust ' may be appropriately used. 
The organ peals forth a solemn strain, and a hymn or requiem for the 
dead is sung. In a few minutes, or even seconds, and without any 
perceptible noise or commotion, all is over, and nothing but a few 
pounds or ounces of light ash remains. This is carefully collected by 
the attendants of the adjoining chamber: a door communicating with 
the chapel is thrown open ; and the relic, enclosed in a vase of glass or 
other material, is brought in and placed before the mourners, to be final- 
ly enshrined in the funeral urn of marble, alabaster, stone, or metal. 

Speaking for myself, I must say that I think it would 
cause a strange feeling in most people to part at the 
chapel-door with the corpse of one who had been very 
dear, and, after a few minutes of horrible suspense, dur- 
ing which they should know that it was burning in a fierce 
furnace, to see the vessel of white ashes brought back, 
and be told that there was all that was mortal of the de- 
parted friend. No doubt it may be weakness and prej- 
udice, but I think that few could divest themselves of the 
feeling of sacrilegious violence. Better far to lay the 
brother or sister, tenderly as though still they felt, in the 
last resting-place, so soft and trim. It soothes W5, if it 
does no good to tliem^ and the sad change which we know 
is soon to follow is wrought only by the gentle hand of 
Nature. And only think of a man pointing to half-a-dozen 



IJ2 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

vases on his mantelpiece, and as many more on his chef- 
fonier, and saying, ' There the wicked cease from troub- 
ling, and there the weary are at rest ! * 
No, no ; the thing will never do ! 

One of the latest examples of burning, in the case of 
a Christian, is that of Henry Laurens, the first President 
of the American Congress. In his will he solemnly en- 
joined upon his children that they should cause his body 
to be given to the flames. The Emperor Napoleon, when 
at St. Helena, expressed a similar desire ; and said, truly 
enough, that as for the Resurrection, that would be mi- 
raculous at all events, and it would be just as easy for 
the Almighty to accomplish that great end in the case of 
burning as in that of burial. And, indeed, the doctrine 
of the Resurrection is one that it is not wise to scru- 
tinize too minutely — I mean as regards its rationale. 
It is best to simply hold by the great truth, that ' this 
corruptible shall put on in corruption, and this mortal 
shall put on immortality.' I presume that it has been 
shown beyond doubt that the material particles which 
make up our bodies are in a state of constant flux, the 
entire physical nature being changed every seven years, 
so that if all the particles which once entered into the 
structure of a man of fourscore were reassembled, they 
would suffice to make seven or eight bodies. And the 
manner in which it is certain that the mortal part of 
man is dispersed and assimilated to all the eletoenta 
furnishes a very striking thought. Bryant h«is s.sid, 
truly and beautifully, 

All that tread 
The globe, are but a handful to the tribw 
That slumber in its boson: . 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 113 

And James Montgomery, in a poem of his which is 
little known, and which is amplified and spoiled in the 
latest editions of his works, has suggested to us \^ hither 
the mortal vestiges of these untold millions have gone. 
It is entitled Lines to a Molehill in a Churchyard, 

Tell me, thou dust beneath my feet, — 
Thou dust that once hadst breath, — 

Tell me, how many mortals meet 
In this small hill of death. 

The mole, that scoops with curious toil 

Her subterranean bed, 
Thinks not she plows a human soil, 

And mines among the dead. 

Tet, whereso'er she turns the ground. 

My kindred earth I see : 
Once every atom of this mound 

Lived, breathed, and felt, like me. 

Through all this hillock's crumbling mould 

Once the warm lifeblood ran: 
Here thine original behold, 

And here thy ruins, man ! 

By wafting winds and flooding rains. 

From ocean, earth, and sky. 
Collected here, the frail remains 

Of slumbering millions lie. 

The towers and temples crushed by time, 

Stupendous wrecks, appear 
To me less mournfully sublime 

Than this pbor molehill here. 

Methinks this dust yet heaves with breath — • 

Ten thousand pulses beat; — 
Tell me, in this small hill of death, 

How many mortals meet ! 
8 



114 CONCEKXING CHURCHYARDS. 

One idea, you see, beaten out rather thin, and ex- 
pressed in a great manj words, as was the good man's 
wont. And in these days of the misty and spasmodic 
school, I owe my readers an apology for presenting them 
with poetry which they will have no difficulty in under^ 
standing. 

Amid a great number of particulars as to the burial 
customs of various nations, we find mention made of an 
odd way in which the natives of Thibet dignify their 
great people. They do not desecrate such by giving 
them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs to 
devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that 
Englishwoman, a century or two back, who had her hus- 
band burnt to ashes, and these ashes reduced to powder, 
of which she mixed some with all the water she drank, 
thinking, poor heart-broken creature, that thus she was 
burying the dear form within her own. 
. In rare cases I have known of the parson or the 
churchwarden turning his cow to pasture in the church- 
yard, to the sad desecration of the place. It appears, 
however, that worse than this has been done, if we 
may judge from the following passage quoted by Mrs. 
Stone : — 

1540. Proceedings in the Court of Archdeaconry of Colchester, Colne 
VVuke. !^otatur per iconiraos dicte ecclesie y' the parson mysusithe 
the churche-yard. for hogis do wrote up graves, and besse lie in tlia 
porche, and ther the pavements be broke up ana soyle the porche; 
and ther is so mych catell y' usithe the church-yarde, y' is naore 
liker a pasture than a halowed place. 

It is usual, it appears, in the southern parts of France, 
to erect in the churchyard a lofty pillar, bearing a large 
lamp, which throws its light upon the cemetery during 
ihe night. The custom began in the twelfth or thirteenth 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 115 

century. Sometimes the Janterne des morts was a highly 
ornamented chapel, built in a circular form, like the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, in which 
the dead lay exposed to view in the days which preceded 
their interment : sometimes it was merely a hollow col- 
umn, ascended by a winding stair inside, or by projec- 
tions left for the purpose within. It must have been 
a striking sight when the traveller, through the dark 
night, saw far away the lonely flame that marked the spot 
where so many of his fellow-men had completed their 
journey. 

One of the oddest things ever introduced into Materia 
Medica was the celebrated Mummy Powder. Egyptian 
mummies, being broken up and ground into dust, were 
held of great value as medicine both for external and 
internal application. Boyle and Bacon unite in com- 
mending its virtues : the latter, indeed, venturing to 
suggest that ^ the mixture of balms that are glutinous ' 
was the foundation of its power, though common belief 
held that the virtue was ' more in the Egyptian than in the 
spice.' Even in the seventeenth century mummy was 
an important article of commerce, and was sold at a 
great price. One Eastern traveller brought to the Tur- 
key Company six hundred weight of mummy broken 
into pieces. Adulteration came into play in a manner 
which would have gratified the Lancet commission : the 
Jews collecting the bodies of executed criminals, filling 
them with common asphaltum, which cost little, and then 
drying them in the sun, when they became undistinguish- 
able from the genuine article. And the maladies which 
mummy was held to cure are set forth in a list which 
we commend to the notice of Professor Holloway. It 
«iiras ' to be taken in decoctions of marjoram, thyme elder- 



116 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

flower, barley, roses, lentils, jujubes, cummin-seed, carra- 
way, saffron, cassia, parsley, with oxymel, wine, milk, 
butter, castor, and mulberries. Sir Thomas Browne, 
who was a good deal before his age, did not approve of 
the use of mummy. He says : 

Were the efficacy thereof more clearly made out, we scarce conceive 
the use thereof allowable in physic : exceeding the barbarities of Cam- 
byses, and turning old heroes into unworthy potions. Shall Egypt 
lend out her ancients unto chirurgeons and apothecaries, and Cheops 
and Psammeticus be weighed unto us for drugs ? Shall we eat of Cham* 
nes and Amasis in electuaries and pills, and be cured by cannibal mix* 
tures? Surely such diet is miserable vampirism; and exceeds in hor- 
ror the black banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled except in those 
Arabian feasts wherein ghouls feed horribly. 

I need hardly add that the world has come round to 
the great physician's way of thinking, and that mummy 
is not included in the pharmacopoeia of modern days. 

The monumental inscriptions of this country, as a gen- 
eral rule, furnish lamentable proof of the national bad 
taste. Somehow our peculiar genius seems not to lie in 
that direction ; and very eminent men, who did most other 
things well, have signally failed when they tried to pro- 
duce an epitaph. What with stilted extravagance and 
bombast on the one side, and profane and irreverent jest- 
ing on the other, our epitaphs, for the most part, would 
be better away. It was well said by Addison of the in- 
scriptions in Westminster Abbey, — ' Some epitaphs are 
so extravagant that the dead person would blush ; and 
others so excessively modest that they deliver the char- 
acter of the person departed in Greek and Hebrew, and 
by that means are not understood once in a twelve- 
month.' And Fuller has hit the characteristics of a fit- 
ting epitaph when he said that ' the shortest, plainest, 
and truest epitaphs are the best.' In most cases the safe 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 117 

plan is to give no more than the name and age, and some 
brief text of Scripture. 

Every one knows that epitaphs generally are expressed 
in such complimentary terms as quite explain the ques- 
lion of the child, who wonderingly inquired where they 
buried the bad people. Mrs. Stone, however, quotes a 
remarkably out-spoken one, from a monument in Horsely- 
down Church, in Cumberland. It runs as follows : — 

Here lie the bodies 

Of Thomas Bond and Mary his wife. 

She was temperate, chaste, and charitable ; 

But 

She was proud, peevish, and passionate. 

She was an affectionate vAfe and a teude.r mother; 

But 

Her husband and child, whom she loved. 

Seldom saw her countenance without a disgusting frown; 

While she received visitors whom she despised with an endearing 

smile. 

Her behaviour was discreet towards strangers ; 

But 

Imprudent in her family. 

Abroad her conduct was influenced by good breeding; 

But 

At home by ill temper. 

And so the epitaph runs on to considerable length, ac- 
knowledging the good qualities of the poor woman, but 
killing each by setting against it some peculiarly unamia- 
ble trait. I confess that my feeling is quite turned in 
her favour by the unmanly assault which her brother 
(the author of the inscription) has thus made upon the 
poor dead woman. If you cannot honestly say good of 
a human being on his grave-stone, then say nothing at 
all. There are some cases in which an exception may 
justly be made ; and such a one, I think, was that of 
the infamous Francis Chartres, who died in 1731. He 



118 CONCERNING CHURCHYAEDS. 

was buried in Scotland, and at his funeral the populaca 
raised a riot, ahnost tore his body from the coffin," and 
threw dead dogs into the grave along with it. Dr. Ar- 
buthnot wrote his epitaph, and here it is : — 

Here continueth to rot 

The body of Francis Chartres: 

"Who, with an inflexible constancy, 

and 

Inimitable uniformity of life, 

Persisted, 

In spite of age and infirmities, 

In the practice of ever}' human vice. 

Excepting prodigality and hypr crisy : 

His insatiable avarice exempt? I him 

from the first. 

His matchless impudence froi k the 

second. 

Nor was he more singula • 

In the undeviating pravity o-' his 

manners, 

Than successful 

In accumulating wealth 

For without trade or profes-''-»>!i. 

Without trust of public mo^'tf , 

And without bribeworthy service, 

He acquired, or more properlj ^i.«i,.tod, 

A Ministerial Estate • 

He was the only person of L^s t'ri-^ 

Who could cheat without the mask of 

honesty, 

Retain his primeval mear aess 

When possessed of ten thousard rt, y^ t.. 

And having daily deserved the jibbet f^ 

what he did. 

Was at last condemned for vLat he 

could not do. 

Oh! indignant reader? 

Think not his life useless to mankind. 

Providence connived at his execrabl»> uej' %. . 

To give to after ages 

A conspicuous proof and exarpl<» 



CONCERNING CHUPwCHYARDS. 119 

Of how small estimation is exorbitant 

wealth 

In the sight of God, 

By his bestowing it on the most 

unworthy of all 

mortals. 

If one does intend to make a verbal assault upon any 
man, it is well to do so in words which will sting and cut ; 
and assuredly Arbuthnot has succeeded in his laudable in- 
tention. The character is justly drawn ; and with the 
change of a very few words, it might correctly be in- 
scribed on the monument of at least one Scotch and one 
English peer, who have died within the last half-century. 

There are one or two extreme cases in which it is in 
good taste, and the effect not without sublimity, to leave a 
monument with no inscription at all. Of course this can 
only be when the monument is that of a very great and 
illustrious man. The pillar erected by Bernadotte at 
Frederickshall, in memory of Charles the Twelfth, bears 
not a word ; and I believe most people who visit the 
spot ftel that Bernadotte judged well. The rude mass 
of masonry, standing in the solitary waste, that marks 
where Howard the philanthropist sleeps, is likewise name- 
less. And when John Kyrle died in 1724, he was buried 
in the chancel of the church of Ross in Herefordshire, 
* without so much as an inscription.' But the Man of 
Ross had his best monument in the lifted head and beam- 
ing eye of those he left behind him at the mention of his 
name. He never knew, of course, that the bitter little 
satirist of Twickenham would melt into unwonted tenrler- 
ness in telling of all he did, and apologize nobly for his 
nameless grave : — 

And what! no monument, inscription, stone? 
His race, his form, his name almost, unknown ? 



120 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, 
Will never mai'k the marble with his name: 
Go, search it there, where to be born and die, 
Of rich and poor make all the history: 
Enough, that virtue filled the space between. 
Proved, by the ends of being, to have been!* 

The two fine epitaphs written by Ben Jonson are well 
known. One is on the Countess of Pembroke : — 

Underneath this marble hearse, 
Lies the subject of all verse: 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother; 
Death ! ere thou hast slain another, 
Learned and fair, and good as she, * 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

And the other is the epitaph of a certain unknown Eliza- 
beth : — 

Wouldst thou hear what man can say 
In a little ? — reader, stay. 
Underneath this stone doth lie 
As much beauty as could die; 
Which in life did harbour give, 
To more virtue than doth live. 

If at all she had a fault, 

Leave it buried in this vault : 

One name was Elizabeth, 

The other let it sleep with death: 

Fitter, where it died, to tell, 

Than that it lived at all. Farewell ! 

Most people have heard of the brief epitaph inscribed 
on a tombstone in the floor of Hereford Cathedral, which 
inspired one of the sonnets of Wordsworth. There is no 
name, no date, but the single word Miserrimus. The 
lines, written by herself, which are inscribed on the grave- 
stone of Mrs. Hemans, in St. Anne's Church at Dublin, 
are very beautiful, but too well known to need quotation. 
* Pope's Moral Essays. Epistle III. 



CONCERNmG CHURCHYARDS. 121 

And Longfellow, in his charming little poem of Nureni' 
burg, has preseived the characteristic word in the epitaph 
of Albert Diirer: — 

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies ; 
Dead he is not, — but departed, — for the artist never dies. 

Perhaps some readers may be interested by the follow- 
ing epitaph, written by no less a man than Sir Walter 
Scott, and inscribed on the stone which covers the grave 
of a humble heroine whose name his genius has made 
known over the world. The grave is in the churchyard 
of Kirkpatrick-Irongray, a few miles from Dumfries : — 

This stone was erected 

By the Author of Waverley 

To the memory of 

Helen Walker 

Who died in the year of God 1791. 

This humble individual 

practised in real life 

the virtues 

with which fiction has invested 

the imaginaiy character 

of 

Jeanie Deans. 

Refusing the slightest departure 

from veracity 

even to save the life of a sister, 

she neverthless showed her 

kindness and fortitude 

by rescuing her from the severity of the law; 

at the expense of personal exertions 

which the time rendered as difficult 

as the motive was laudable. 



Respect the grave of poverty 

when combined with love of truth 

and dear affection. 



Although, of course, it is treasonable to say so, I con« 



122 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

fess I think this inscription somewhat cumbrous and awk* 
ward. The antithesis is not a good one, between the 
difficulty of Jeanie's * personal exertions ' and the laud 
ableness of the motive which led to them. And there is 
something not metaphysically correct in the combination 
described in the closing sentence — the combination of 
poverty, an outward condition, with truthfulness and 
affection, two inward characteristics. The only parallel 
phrase which I remember in literature is one which was 
used by Mr. Stiggins when he was explaining to Sam 
Weller what was meant by a moral pocket-handkerchief. 
* It's them,* were Mr. Stiggins's words, ' as combines 
useful instruction with wood-cuts.' Poverty might co- 
exist with, or be associated w^ith, any mental qualities you 
please, but assuredly it cannot correctly be said to enter 
into combination with any. 

As for odd and ridiculous epitaphs, their number is 
great, and every one has the chief of them at his fingers' 
ends. I shall be content to give two or three, which I 
am quite sure hardly any of my readers ever heard of 
before. The following, which may be read on a tomb- 
stone in a country churchyard in Ayrshire, appears to me 
to be unequalled for irreverence. And let critics observe 
the skilful introduction of the dialogue form, giving the 
inscription a dramatic effect : — 

Wha is it that's lying here ? — 
Robin "Wood, ye needna speer. 
Eh Robin, is this you? 
Ou aye, but I'm deid noo ! 

The following epitaph was composed by a village poet 
and wit, not unknowii to me in my youth, for a rival 
poet, one Syme, who ^oad published a volume of verses 
On the Times (not the new .paper). 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 123 

Beneath this thistle, 

Skin, bone, and gristle, 
In Sexton Goudie's Iwepin' lies, 

Of poet S3'Tne, 

Who fell to rhyme, 
(0 bards beware !) a sacrifice. 

Ask not at all, 

Where flew his saul, 
When of the body death bereft her: 

She, like his rhymes 

Upon the Times, 
Was never worth the speerin' after ! 

Speerin% I should mention, for the benefit of those 
ignorant of Lowland Scotch, means asking or inquiring. 

It is recorded in history that a certain Mr. Anderson, 
who filled the dignified office of Provost of Dundee, died, 
as even provosts must. It was resolved that a mon- 
ument should be erected in his memory, and that the 
inscription upon it should be the joint composition of 
four of his surviving colleagues in the magistracy. They 
met to prepare the epitaph ; and after much considera- 
tion it was resolved that the epitaph should be a rhymed 
stanza of four lines, of which lines each magistrate should 
contribute one. The senior accordingly began, and hav- 
ing deeply ruminated he produced the following : — 

Here lies Anderson, Provost of Dundee. 

This formed a neat and striking introduction, going 
(so to speak) to the heart of things at once, but leaving 
room for subsequent amplification. The second magis- 
trate perceived this, and felt that the idea was such a 
good one that it ought to be followed up. He therefore 
produced the line, 

Here lies Him, here lies He: 



124 CONCEHNING CHURCHYARDS. 

thus repeating in different modifications the same grand 
thought, after the style which has been adopted by 
Burke, Chahners, Melvill, and other great orators. The 
third magistrate, whose turn had now arrived, felt that 
the foundation had thus been substantially laid down, 
and that the time had come to erect upon it a superstruc- 
ture of reflection, inference, or exclamation. With the 
Bimplicity of genius he wrote as follows, availing himself 
of a poet's license to slightly alter the ordinary forms of 

language : — 

Hallelujah, Hallelujee! 

The epitaph being thus, as it were, rounded and com- 
plete, the fourth contributor to it found himself in a diffi- 
culty ; wherefore add anything to that which needed 
and in truth admitted nothing more ? Still the stanza 
must be completed. What should he do ? He would 
fall back on the earliest recollections of his youth — he 
would recur to the very fount and origin of all human 
knowledge. Seizing his pen, he wrote thus : — 

A. B. C. D. E. F. G. ! 

Whoever shall piece together these valuable lines, thus 
fragmentarily presented, will enter into the feelings of 
the Town Council, which bestowed a vote of thanks upon 
their authors, and caused the stanza to be engraven on 
the worthy provost's monument. I have not myself read 
it, but am assured it is in existence. 

There was something of poor Thomas Hood's morbi 
taste for the ghastly, and the physically repulsive, in his 
fancy of spending some time during his last illness in 
drawing a picture of himself dessA in his shroud. In his 
memoirs, published by his children, you may see the pic- 
ture, grimly truthful: and bearing the legend, He scmg 



CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 125 

the Song of the Shirt. You may discover in what he 
drew, as well as in what he wrote, many indications of 
the humourist's perverted taste : and no doubt the knowl- 
edge that mortal disease was for years doing its work 
within, led his thoughts oftentimes to what was awaiting 
himself. He could not walk in an avenue of elm-trees, 
without fancying that one of them might furnish his 
coffin. When in his ear, as in Longfellow's, ' the green 
trees whispered low and mild,' their sound did not carry 
him back to boyhood, but onward to his grave. He lis- 
tened, and there rose within 

A secret, vague, prophetic fear, 

As though by certain mark, 
I knew the fore-ordained tree, 

Within whose rugged bark, 
This warm and living form shall find 

Its narrow house and dark. 

Not but that such thoughts are wel^ in their due time 
and place. It is very fit that we should all sometimes 
try to realize distinctly what is meant when each of us 
repeats words four thousand years old, and says, ' I know 
that Thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house ap- 
pointed for all living.' Even with all such remembran- 
ces brought home to him by means to which we are not 
likely to resort, the good priest and martyr Robert South- 
well tells us how hard he found it, while in buoyant life, 
to rightly consider his end. But in perfect cheerfulness 
and healthfulness of spirit, the human being who knows 
(so far as man can know) where he is to rest at last, 
may oftentimes visit that peaceful spot. It will do him 
good : it can do him no harm. The hard-wrought man 
may fitly look upon the soft green turf, some day to be 
opened for him ; and think to himself. Not yet, I have 



126 CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS. 

more to do yet ; but in a little while. Somewhere there 
is a place appointed for each of us, a place that is wait- 
ing for each of us, and that will not be complete till we 
are there. Well, we rest in the humble trust, that 
* through the grave and gate of death, we shall pass to 
our joyful resurrection.' And we turn away now from 
the churchyard, recalling Bryant's lines as to its extent : 

Yet not to thy eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone ; nor couldst thou wish 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, 

The powerful of the earth, the wise and good, 

Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past, 

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales, 

Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods ; rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 

Are but the solemn decorations all 

Of the Great Tomb of Man ! 



CHAPTER V. 



CONCERIsING SUMMER DAYS. 




^ HERE are some people whom all nature 
helps. They have somehow got the mate- 
rial universe on their side. What they say 
and do, at least upon important occasions, is 
60 backed up by all the surroundings that it never seems 
out of keeping with these, and still less ever seems to be 
contradicted by these. When Mr. Midhurst * read his 
essay on the Miseries of Human Life, he had all the ad- 
vantage of a gloomy, overcast day. And so the aspect 
of the external world was to the essay like the accom- 
paniment in music to a song. The accompaniment, of 
course, has no specific meaning ; it says nothing, but it 
appears to accord and sympathize with the sense con- 
veyed by the song's words. But gloomy hills and skiea 
and woods are to desponding views of life and man, even 
more than the sympathetic chords, in themselves mean- 
ingless. The gloomy world not merely accords with the 
desponding views, but seems somehow to back them. 
You are conscious of a great environing Presence stand- 
ing by and looking on approvingly. From all points in 
the horizon a voice, soft and undefined, seems to whisper 
to your heart, All true, all too true. 

* See the New Series of Friends in Council. 



128 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

Now, there are human beings who, in the great things 
they say and do, seldom fail of having this great, vague 
backing. There are others whom the grand current 
for the most part sets against. It is part of the great 
fact of Luck — the indubitable fact that there are men, 
women, ships, horses, railway-engines, whole railways, 
*vhich are lucky, and others which are unlucky. I do 
not believe in the common theory of Luck, but no 
thoughtful or observant man can deny the fact of it. 
And in no fashion does it appear more certainly than in 
this, that in the case of some men cross-accidents are 
always marring them, and the effect they would fain 
produce. The system of things is against them. They 
are not in every case unsuccessful, but whatever success 
they attain is got by brave fighting against wind and 
.tide. At college they carried off many honours, but no 
such luck ever befel them as that some wealthy person 
should offer during their days some special medal for 
essay or examination, which they would have gained as 
of course. There was no extra harvest for them to reap : 
they could do no more than win all that was to be won. 
They go to the bar, and they gradually make their way ; 
but the day never comes on which their leader is sud- 
denly taken ill, and they have the opportunity of earning 
a brilliant reputation by conducting in his absence a case 
in which they are thoroughly prepared. They go into 
the Church, and earn a fair character as preachers ; but 
the living they would like never becomes vacant, and 
when they are appointed to preach upon some important 
occasion, it happens that the ground is a foot deep with 
snow. 

Several years since, on a Sunday in July, I went to 
afternoon service at a certain church by the sea-shore. 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 12S 

The incumbent of that church was a young clergyman of 
no ordinary talent ; he is a distinguished professor now. 
It was a day of drenching rain and howling hurricane; the 
sky was black, as in mid-winter ; the waves were break- 
ing angry and loud upon the rocks hard by. The weath- 
er the previous week had been beautiful ; the weather 
became beautiful again the next morning. There came 
just the one gloomy and stormy summer day. The 
young parson could not forsee the weather. What more 
fitting subject for a July Sunday than the teachings of 
the beautiful season which was passing over? So the 
text was, Thou hast made sumyner : it was a sermon on 
summer, and its moral and spiritual lessons. How in- 
consistent the sermon seemed with everything around ! 
The outward circumstances reduced it to an absurdity. 
The congregation was diminished to a sixth of its usual 
numljer ; the atmosphere was charged with a muggy 
vapour from sloppy garments and dripping umbrellas : 
and as the preacher spoke, describing vividly (though 
with the chastened taste of the scholar) blue skies, green 
leaves, and gentle breezes, ever and anon the storm out- 
side drove the rain in heavy plashes upon the windows, 
and, looking through them, you could see the black sky 
and the fast-drifting clouds. I thought to myself, as the 
preacher went on under the cross influence of these sur- 
roundings. Now, I am sure you are in small things an 
unlucky man. No doubt the like happens to you fre- 
quently. You are the kind of man to whom the Times 
fails to come on the morning you specially wish to see it. 
Your horse falls lame on the morning when you have a 
'ong drive before you. Your manservant catches a sore 
throat, and is unable to go out, just. when the visitor 
comes to whom you wish to show the neighboring coun- 
9 



130 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

try. I felt for the preacher. I was younger then, but 1 
had seen enough to make me think how Mr. Snarhng of 
the next parish (a very dull preacher, with no power of 
description) would chuckle over the tale of the summer 
sermon on the stormy day. That youthful preacher (not 
Mr. Snarhng) had been but a few months in the church, 
and he probably had not another sermon to give in tho 
unexpected circumstances : he must preach what he had 
prepared. He had fallen into error. I formed a reso- 
lution never to do the like. I was looking forward then 
with great enthusiasm to the work of my sacred profes- 
sion : with enthusiasm which has only grown deeper and 
warmer through the experience of more than nine years. 
I resolved that if ever I thought of preaching a summer 
sermon, I would take care to have an alternative one 
ready for that day in case of unfavourable weather. I 
resolved that I would give my summer discourse oj^j if 
external nature, in her soft luxuriant beauty, looked 
summer-like : a sweet pervading accompaniment to my 
poor words, giving them a force and meaning far beyond 
their own. What talk concerning summer skies is like 
the sapphire radiance, so distant and pure, looking in 
through the church windows ? You do not remember 
how blue and beautiful the sky is, unless when you are 
looking at it : nature is better than our remembrance of 
her. What description of a leafy tree equals that noble, 
soft, massive, luxuriant object Avhich I looked at for half- 
an-hour yesterday through the window of a little country 
church, while listening to the sermon of a friend ? Do not 
think that I was inattentive. I heard the sermon with 
the greater pleasure and profit for the sight. It is charac- 
teristic of the preaching of a really able man, preaching 
what he himself has felt, that all he says appears (as a 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 131 

general rule) in harmony wilh all the universe; while 
the preaching of a commonplace man, giving us from 
memory mere theological doctrine which has been drilled 
into him, and which he repeats because he supposes it 
must be all right, seems inconsistent with all the material 
universe, or at least quite apart from it. Yet, even lis- 
tening to that excellent sermon (whose masculine thought 
was very superior to its somewhat slovenly style), I 
thought, as I looked at the beautiful tree rising in the 
silent churchyard, — the stately sycamore, so bright 
green, with the blue sky all around it, — how truly 
John Foster wrote, that when standing in January at the 
foot of a large oak, and looking at its bare branches, he 
vainly tried to picture to himself what that tree would 
be in June. The reality would be far richer and finer 
than anything he could imagine on the winter day. Who 
does not know this ? The green grass and the bright 
leaves in spring are far greener (you see when they 
come back) than you had remembered or imagined ; the 
sunshine is more golden, and the sky more bright. God's 
works are better and more beautiful than our poor idea 
of them. Though I have seen them and loved them 
now for more than thirty summers, I have felt this year, 
with something of almost surprise, how exquisitely beau- 
tiful are summer foliage and summer grass. Here they 
are again, fresh from God ! The summer world is in- 
comparably more beautiful than any imagination could 
picture it on a dull December day. You did not know 
on New Year's day, my reader, how fair a thing the 
sunshine is. And the commonest things are the most 
beautiful. Flowers are beautiful : he must be a black- 
guard who does not love them. Summer seas are beau- 
tiful, so exquisitely blue under the blue summer skyt 



132 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

But Tihat can surpass the beauty of green grass an(3 
green trees ! Amid such things let me live ; and when 
I am gone, let green grass grow over me. I would not 
be buried beneath a stone pavement, not to sleep in the 
great Abbey itself. 

My summer sermon has never been written, and so 
has never been preached ; I doubt whether I could make 
much of the subject, treated as it ought to be treated 
there. But an essay is a different matter, notwithstand- 
ing that a dear, though sarcastic friend says that my 
essays are merely sermons played in polJca time ; the 
thought of sermons, to wit, lightened somewhat by a 
somewhat lighter fashion of phrase and illustration. 
And all that has hitherto been said is introductory to 
remarking, that I stand in fear of what kind of day it 
may be when my reader shall see this essay, which as 
yet exists but vaguely in the writer's mind ; and upon 
four pieces of paper, three large and one small. If 
your eye lights upon this page on a cold, bleak day ; if 
it be wet and plashy ; above all, if there be east wind, 
read no further. Keep this essay for a warm, sunshiny 
day ; it is only then that you will sympathize with its 
author. For amid a dismal, rainy, stormy summer, we 
have reached fair weather at last ; and this is a lovely, 
sunny summer morning. And what an indescribably 
beautiful thing is a summer day ! I do not mean merely 
the hours as they pass over ; the "long light ; the sun 
going up and going down ; but all that one associates 
with summer days, spent in sweet rural scenes. There 
is great variety in summer days. There is the warm, 
bright, still summer day ; when everything seems asleep, 
and the topmost branches of the tall trees do not stir in 
the azure air. There is the breezy summer day, when 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 133 

warm bieaths wave these topmost branches gently to 
and fro, and you stand and look at them; when sportive 
winds bend the green corn as they swiftly sweep over it ; 
when the shadows of the clouds pass slowly along the 
hills. Even the rainy day, if it come with soft summer- 
like rain, is beautiful. People in town are apt to think 
of rain as a mere nuisance ; the chief good it does there 
is to water the streets more generally and thoroughly 
that usual ; a rainy day in town is equivalent to a bad 
day ; but in the country, if you possess even the smallest 
portion of the earth, you learn to rejoice in the rain. 
You g"> out in it ; you walk about and enjoy the sight of 
the grass momently growing greener ; of the trees look- 
ing refreshed, and the evergreens gleaming, the gravel 
walks so free from dust, and the roads watered so as to 
render them beautifully compact, but not at all sloppy 
or muddy; summer, rain never renders well-made coun- 
try roads sloppy or muddy. There is a pleasure ia 
thinking that yoa have got far ahead of man or ma- 
chine ; and you heartily despise a watering-cart, whilti 
enjoying a soft summer shower. And after the shower 
is over, what fragrance is diffused througti the country 
air ; every tree and shrub has an odour which a summer 
shower brings out, and which senses trained to percep- 
tion will perceive. And then, how full the trees and 
woods are of the sinwino: of birds ! * But there is one 
feeling which, if you live in the country, is common to 
all pleasant summer days, but particularly to sunshiny 
ones ; it is that you are doing injustice to nature, that 
you are losing a great deal, if you do not stay almost 
constantly in the open air. You come to grudge every 
half hour that you are within doors, or busied with things 
that call you off from observing and thinking of all the 



134: CONCERNING SUMaiER DAYS. 

beauty that is around you everywhere. That fair scene, 
— trees, grass, flowers, sky, sunshine, is tliere to be 
looked at and enjoyed ; it seems wrong, that with such 
a picture passing on before your eyes, your eyes should 
be turned upon anything else. Work, especially mental 
work, is always painful ; always a thing you would 
shrink from if you could ; but how strongly you shrink 
from it on a beautiful summer morning ! On a gloomy 
winter day you can walk with comparative wilHngness 
into your study after breakfast, and spread out your pa- 
per, and begin to write your sermon. For although 
writing the sermon is undoubtedly an effort ; and al- 
though all sustained effort partakes of the nature of 
pain ; and although pain can never be pleasant ; still, 
after all, apart from other reasons which impel you to 
your work, you cannot but feel that really if you were 
to turn away from your task of writing, there is nothing 
to which you could take that you would enjoy very much 
more than itself. And even on the fairest summer 
morning, you can, if you are living in town, take to 
your task with comparative ease. Somehow, in town, 
the weather is farther off from you ; it does not per- 
vade all the house, as it does in the country : you have 
not windows that open into the garden: through which 
you see green trees and grass every time you look up ; 
and through which you can in a minute, without the 
least change of dress, pass into the verdant scene. 
There is all the difference in the world, between the 
shadiest and greenest public garden or park even within 
a hundred yards of your door ; and the green shady 
little spot that comes up to your very w^indow. The 
former is no very great temptation to the busy scholar of 
rural tastes ; the latter is almost irresistible. A hundred 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 135 

yards are a long way to go, with purpose prepense of 
enjoying something so simple as the green earth. After 
having w^alked even a hundred yards, you feel that you 
need a more definite aim. And the grass and trees seem 
very far away, if you see them at the end of a vista of 
washing your hands, and putting on another coat and 
other boots, and still more of putting on gloves and a 
hat. Give me the little patch of grass, the three or 
four shady trees, the quiet corner of the shrubbery, that 
comes up to the study window, and which you can reach 
"without even the formality of passing through the hall 
and out by the front door. If you wish to enjoy nature 
in the summer-time, you must attend to all these little 
things. What stout old gentleman but knows that when 
he is seated snugly in his easy chair by the winter even- 
ing fireside, he would take up and read many pages in 
a volume w^hich lay within reach of his arm, though he 
would do without the volume, if in order to get it he had 
to take the slight trouble of rising from his chair and 
walking to a table half a dozen yards off? Even so 
must nature be brought within easy reach of even the 
true lover of nature ; otherwise on a hundred occasions, 
all sorts of little, fanciful hindrances will stand between 
him and her habitual appreciation. A very small thing 
may prevent your doing a thing which you even wish 
to do ; but which you do not wish with any special 
excitement, and which you may do at any time. I 
daresay some reader would have written months since 
to a friend in • India to whom he promised faithfully to 
write frequently, but that w^hen he sat down once or 
twice to write, and pulled out his paper-drawer, he found 
that all the thin Indian paper was done. And so the 
upshot is, that the friend has been a year out ; and you 
have never written to him at all. 



136 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

But to return to the point from which this deviation 
proceeded, I repeat, that on a fine summer morning in 
the country it is excessively difficult to take to your 
work. Apart from the repellent influence which is in 
work itself, you think that you will miss so much. You 
go out after breakfast (with a vvide-awake hat, and no 
gloves) into the fresh atmosphere. You walk round the 
garden. You look particularly at the more eminent 
roses, and the largest trees. You go to the stable-yard, 
and see what is doing there. There are twenty things 
to think of: numberless little directions to give. You 
see a weedy corner, and that must not be suffered : you 
see a long spray of a climbing rose that needs training. 
You look into the corn-chest : the corn is almost finished. 
You have the fact impressed upon you that the old pota- 
toes are nearly done, and the new ones hardly ready for 
use. These things partake of the nature of care : if you 
do not feel very well, you will regard them as worries. 
But it is no care nor worry to walk down to your gate, 
to lean upon it, and to look at the outline of the hills : nor 
to go out with your little children, and walk slowly along 
the country lane outside your gate, relating for the hun- 
dredth time the legend of the renowned giant-killer, or 
the enchanted horse that flew through the air ; to walk 
on till you come to the bridge, and there sit down, and 
throw in stones for your dog to dive after, while various 
shouts (very loud to come from such little mouths) ap- 
j)laud his success. How crystal-clear the water of the 
river ! It is six feet deep, yet you may see every peb- 
ble of its bed. An undefined laziness possesses you. 
You would hke to sit here, and look, and think, all day. 
But of course you will not gi\'e in to the temptation. 
Slowly you return to your door ; unwillingly you enter 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 137 

it : reluctantly you take to your work. Until you have 
got somewhat into the spirit of your task, you cannot 
help looking sometimes at the roses which frame your 
window, and the green hill you see through it, with 
white sheep. And even when you have got your mind 
under control, and the lines flow more willingly from 
your pen, you cannot but look out occasionally into the 
sunshiny, shady corner in your view, and think you 
should be there. And when the prescribed pages are 
at length completed, how delightful to lock them up, 
and be oflf into the air again ! You are far happier now 
than you were in the morning. The shadow of your 
work was upon you then : now you may with a pleased 
conscience, and under no sense of pressure, saunter about, 
and enjoy your little domain. Many things have been 
accomplished since you went indoors. The weeds are 
gone from the corner : the spray of the rose has been 
trained. The potato-beds have been examined: the 
potatoes will be all ready in two days more. Sit down 
in the shade, warm yet cool, of a great tree. Now is 
the time to read the Saturday Review, especially the 
article that pitches into you. What do you care for it ? 
I don't mean that you despise it : I mean that it causes 
you no feeling but one of amusement and pleasure. You 
feel that it is written by a clever man and a gentleman : 
you know that there is not a vestige of malice in it. You 
would like to shake hands with the writer, and .to tliank 
him for various useful hints. As for reviewing which is 
truly malignant — that which deals in intentional mis- 
representation and coarse abuse — it is practically un- 
known in respectable periodicals. And wherever you 
may find it (as you sometimes may) you ought never to 
De angry with the man who did it : you ought to be 



138 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

Borry for him. Depend upon it, the poor fellow is in 
bad health or in low spirits : no one but a man who is 
really unhappy himself will deliberately set himself to 
annoy any one else. It is the misery, anxiety, poverty, 
which are wringing the man's heart, that make their pit- 
iful moan in that bitter article. Make the poor man 
better off, and he will be better natured. 

And so, my friend, now that our task is finished, let us 
go out in this kindly temper to enjoy the summer day. 
But you must first assure your mind that your work is 
really finished. You cannot thus simply enjoy the sum- 
mer day, if you have a latent feeling rankling at your 
heart that you are neglecting something that you ought 
to do. The little jar of your moral being caused by such 
a feeling, will be like the horse-hair shirt, will be like the 
peas in the pilgrim's shoes. So, clerical reader, after 
you have written your allotted pages of sermon, and an- 
swered your few letters, turn to your tablet-diary, or 
whatever contrivance you have for suggesting to your 
memory the work you have to do. If you have marked 
down some mere call to make, that may fairly enough 
be postponed on this hot day. But look at your list of 
sick, and see when you visited each last, and consider 
whether there be any you ought to visit to-day. And 
if there be, never mind though the heat be sweltering 
and the roads dusty and shadeless : never mind though 
the poor old man or woman lives five miles off, and 
though your horse is lame : get ready, and walk away 
as slowly as you can, and do your duty. You are not 
the reader I want : you are not the man with whom I 
wish to think of summer days : if you could in the least 
enjoy the afternoon, or have the faintest pleasure in your 
coses ind your grass, with the thought of that neglected 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 139 

work hanging over you. And though you may return 
four hours hence, fagged and jaded, you will sit with a 
pleased heart down to dinner, and you will welcome the 
twilight when it comes, with the cheerful sense of duty 
done and temptation resisted. But upon my ideal sum- 
mer day, I suppose that after looking over your sick-list, 
and all your memoranda, you find that there is nothing 
to do that need take you to-day beyond your own little 
realm. And so, with the delightful sense of leisure to 
breathe and think, you walk forth into the green shade 
to spend the summer afternoon. Bring with you two 
or three books : bring the Times that came that morning : 
you will not read much, but it is pleasant to know that 
you may read if you choose : and then sit down upon a 
garden-seat, and think and feel. Do you not feel, my 
friend of even five-and-thirty, that there is music yet in 
the mention of summer days? Well, enjoy that music 
now, and the vague associations which are summoned up 
by the name. Do not put off the enjoyment of these 
things to some other day. You will never have more 
time, nor better opportunity. Tlxe little worries of the 
present cease to sting in the pensive languor of the 
season. Enjoy the sunshine and the leaves while they 
last: they will not last long. Grasp the day and hold 
it and rejoice in it : some time soon you will find of a 
sudden that the summer time has passed away. Yoa 
come to yourself, and find it is December. The earth 
seems to pause in its orbit in the dreary winter days : 
it hurries at express speed through summer. You wish 
you could put on a break, and make tiniie go on more 
slowly. Well, watch the sandgrains as they pass. Re- 
mark the several minutes, yet without making it a task 
*o do so. As you sit there, you will think of old sum- 



140 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

mer days long ago : of green leaves long since faded . 
of sunsets gone. Well, each had its turn : the present 
has nothing more. And let us think of the past without 
being lackadaisical. Look now at your own little chil- 
dren at play : that sight will revive your flagging inter- 
est in life. Look at the soft turf, feel the gentle air : 
these things are present now. What a contrast .to the 
Lard, repellent earth of winter ! I think of it like the 
difference between the man of sternly logical mind, and 
the genial, kindly man with both head and heart ! I 
take it for granted that you agree with me in holding 
such to be the true type of man. Not but what some 
people are proud of being all head and no heart. There 
is no flummery about them. It is stern, severe sense 
and principle. Well, my friends, say I to such, you are 
(in a moralfsense) deficient of a member. Fancy a mor- 
tal hopping through creation, and boasting that he was 
born with only one leg ! Or even if you have a little 
of the kindly element, but very little when compared 
with the logical, you have not much to boast of. Your 
case is analogous to that of the man who has two legs 
indeed, but one of them a great deal longer than the 
other. 

It is pleasanter to spend the summer days in an inland 
country place, than by the seaside. The sea is too glar- 
ing in sunshiny weather; the prospects are too exten- 
sive. It wearies eyes worn by much writing and read- 
ins: to look at distant hills across the water. The true 
locality in which to enjoy the summer time is a richly- 
wooded country, where you have hedges and hedge-rows, 
and clumps of trees everywhere : where objects for the 
most part are near to you ; and, above all, are green. 
It is pleasant to live in a district where the roads are not 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 141 

great broad highways, in whose centre you feel as if you 
were condemned to traverse a strip of arid desert stretch- 
ing through the landscape ; and where any carriage short 
of a four-in-hand looks so insignificantly small. Give me 
country lanes : so narrow that their glare does not pain 
the eye upon even the sunniest day : so narrow that the 
eye without an effort takes in the green hedges and 
fields on either side as you drive or walk along. 

And now, looking away mentally from this cool shady 
verdure amid which we are sitting, let us think of sum- 
mer days elsewhere. Let us think of them listlessly, 
that we may the more enjoy the quiet here : as a child 
on a frosty winter night, snug in his little bed, puts out a 
foot for a moment into the chilly expanse of sheet that 
stretches away from the warm nest in which he lies, and 
then pulls it swiftly back again, enjoying the cozy warmth 
the more for this little reminder of the bitter chill. Here, 
where the air is cool, pure, and soft, let us think of a 
hoarding round some old house which the labourers are 
pulling down, amid clouds of the white, blinding, parch- 
ing dust of lime, on a sultry summer day. I can hardly 
think of any human position as worse, if not intended 
directly as a position of torture. I picture, too, a crowded 
wharf on a river in a great town, with ships lying along- 
side. There is a roar of passing drays, a cracking of 
draymen's whips, a howling of the draymen. There ia 
hot sunshine ; there are clouds of dust ; and I see sev- 
eral poor fellows wheeling heavy casks in barrows up a 
narrow plank into a ship. Their faces are red and puffy 
with the exertion : their hair is dripping. Ah, the sum- 
mer day is hard upon these poor fellows ! But it would 
be pleasant to-day to. drive a locomotive engine through 
a fine agricultural country, particularly if one were driv- 



142 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

ing an express train, and so were not worried by per- 
petual stoppages. I have often thought that I should 
like to be an engine-driver. Should any revolution or 
convulsion destroy the Church, it is to that field of indus- 
try that I should devote my energies. I should stipulate 
not to drive luggage-trains ; and if I had to begin with 
third-class passenger-trains, I have no doubt that in a 
few months, by dint of great punctuality and carefulness, 
and by having my engine always beautifully clean and 
bright, I sliould be promoted to the express. There was 
a time when driving a locomotive was not so pleasant 
as now. In departed days, when the writer was wont 
to stand upon the foot-plates, through the kindness of 
engine-driving friends now far away, there was a diffi- 
culty in looking out ahead : the current of air was so 
tremendous, and particles of dust were driven so viciously 
into one's eyes. But advancing civilization has removed 
that disadvantage. A snug shelter is now provided for 
the driver : an iron partition arises before him, with two 
panes of glass through which to look out. The result is 
that he can maintain a far more effectual look-out ; and 
that he is in great measure protected from wind and 
weather. Yes, it would be pleasant to be an engine- 
driver, especially on such a day as this. Pleasant to 
look at the great train of carriages standing in the sta- 
tion before starting : to see the piles of luggage going up 
through the exertions of hot porters : to see the numbers 
of passengers, old and young, cool and fiurried, with their 
wraps, their newspapers, their books, at length arranged 
in the soft, roomy interiors ; and then the sense of power, 
when by the touch of a couple of fingers upon the lever, 
you make the whole mass of lugg«ge, of life, of human 
interests and cares, start gently into motion ; till, gather- 



CONCERNING SUMMER DATS. 143 

ing speed as it goes, it tears througli the green stillness 
of the summer noon, amid daisied fields, through little 
woody dells, through clumps of great forest-trees, within 
sight of quiet old manor houses, across little noisy brooks 
and fair broad rivers, beside churchyard walls and grey 
ivied churches, alongside of roads where you see the 
pretty phaeton, the lordly coach, the lumbering waggon, 
and get glimpses that suggest a whole picture of the little 
life of numbers of your fellow-men, each with heart and 
mind and concerns and fears very like your own. Yes, 
my friend, if you rejoice in fair scenery, if you sympa- 
thize with all modes of human life — if you have some 
little turn for mechanics, for neatness and accuracy, for 
that which faithfully does the work it was made to do, 
and neither less nor more : retain it in your mind as an 
ultimate^ end, that you may one day drive a locomotive 
engine. You need not of necessity become greasy of 
aspect; neither need you become black. I never have 
known more tidy, neat, accurate, intelligent, sharp, punc- 
tual, responsible, God-fearing, and truly respectable men, 
than certain engine-drivers. 

Remember the engine must be a locomotive engine. 
Your taste for scenery and life will not be gratified by 
employment on a stationary one. And it is fearfully 
hot work on a summer day to take charge of a station- 
ary steam-engine ; while (perhaps you would not think 
it) to drive a locomotive is perfectly cool work. You 
never feel, in that rapid motion, the raging flame that is 
doing its work so near you. The driver of the express 
train may be a man of large sympathies, of cheerful 
heart, of tolerant views ; the man in charge of the 
engine of » coal-pit or factory, even of a steam-ship, is 
apt to acquire contracted ways of thinking, and to be 



114 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

come somewhat cynical and gloomy in bis ideas as to 
the possible ameboration of society. It cannot be a 
pleasing employment, one would think, on a day like 
this, to sit and watch a great engine fire, and mend it 
when needful. That occupation would not be healthful, 
either to mind or body. I dare say you remember the 
striking and beautiful description in Mr. Dickens's Old 
Curiosity Shop, of a man who had watched and fed a 
furnace-fire for years, till he had come to think of it 
as a living being. The fire was older than he was ; it 
had never gone out since before he was born. I can 
imagine, perfectly well, what kind of effect such a mode 
of life would have had on myself. And very few readers 
are likely to have within themselves an intellectual and 
moral fibre of bent and nature so determined, that they 
are not what they are, mainly through the influence of 
the external circumstances which have been acting upon 
them all through life. Did you ever think to yourself 
that you would like to make trial for a few days' space, 
of certain modes of life very different from your own, 
and very different from each other? I have done so 
many a time. And a lazy summer afternoon here in the 
green shade is the time to try and picture out such. Think 
of being to-day in a stifling counting-house in the hot 
bustling town. I have been especially interested in a 
glazed closet which I have seen in a certain immensel_y 
large and very crowded shop in a certain beautiful city. 
It is a sort of little office partitioned off from the shop 
it has a sloping table, with three or four huge books 
bound in parchment. There is a ceaseless bustle, crush, 
and hum of talking outside ; and inside there are clerks 
Bitting wiiting, and receiving money through little pigeon- 
holes. I should like to sit for two or three days in a 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 145 

corner of that little retreat ; and to write a sermon 
there. It ^yould be curious to sit there to-day in the 
shadow, and to see the warm sunbeams only outside 
through a distant window, resting on sloping roofs. If 
one did not get seasick, there would be something fresh 
in a summer day at sea. It is always cool and breezy 
there, at least in these latitudes, on the warmest day. 
Above all there is no dust. Think of the luxurious 
cabin of a fine yacht to-day. Deep cushions ; rich cur- 
tains ; no tremor of machinery ; flowers, books, carpets 
inches thick ; and through the windows, dim hills and 
blue sea. Then, flying away in spirit, let us go to-day 
(only in imagination) into the Courts of Law at West- 
minster. The atmosphere on a summer day in these 
scenes is always hot and choky. There is a suggestion 
of summer time in the sunshine through the dusty lan- 
terns in the roofs. Thinking of these courts, and all 
their belongings and associations, here on this da}', is 
like the child already mentioned when he puts his foot 
into a very cold comer of his bed, that he may pull it 
back with special sense of what a blessing it is that 
he is not bodily in that very cold corner. Yes, let us 
enjoy this spot where we are, the more keenly, for think- 
ing of the very last place in this world where we should 
like to-day to be. I went lately (on a bright day in 
May) to revive old remembrances of Westminster Hall. 
The judges of the present time are very able and incor- 
ruptible men ; but they are much uglier than the judges 
I remember in my youth. Several of them, in their pe- 
culiar attire, hardly looked like human beings. Almost 
all wore wigs a great deal too large for them ; I mean 
much too thick and massive. The Queen's Counsel, for 
the most part, seemed much younger than they used to 
10 



146 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

be ; but I was aware that this phenomenon arose from 
the fact that I myself was older. And various barristers, 
who fifteen years since were handsome, smooth-faced 
young men, had now a complexion rough as a nutmeg- 
grater, and red with that unhealthy colour which is pro- 
duced by long hours in a poisonous atmosphere. The 
Courts at Westminster, for cramped space and utter al)- 
sence of ventilation, are nothing short of a disgrace to a 
civilized nation. But the most painful reflection which 
they suggest to a man with a little knowledge of the 
practical working of law, is, how vainly human law 
strives to do justice. There, on the benches of the 
various Courts, you have a number of the most able 
and honest men in Britain : skilled by long practice to 
distinguish between right and wrong, between truth and 
falsehood ; and yet, in five cases out of six that come be- 
fore them, they signally fail of redressing the wrongs 
brought before them. Unhappily, in the nature of things, 
much delay must occur in all legal procedure ; and fur- 
ther, the machinery of the law cannot be set in mo- 
tion unless at very considerable expense. Now, every 
one knows that delay in gaining a legal decision of a 
debated question, very often amounts to a decision 
against both parties. What enjoyment of the summer 
days has the harassed suitor, waiting in nervous anxi- 
ety for the judgment or the verdict which may be his 
ruin ? For very small things may be the ruin of many 
men. A few pounds to be paid may dip an honest man's 
head under water for years, or for life. But the great 
evil of the law, after all, is, that it costs so much. I 
am aware that this may be nobody's fault ; it may be a 
vice inherent in the nature of things. Still, where the 
matter in question is of no very great amount, it ia a 



CONCERNING SmBIER DAYS. 147 

feet tlial makes the wise man willing rather to take in- 
justice than to go to law. A man meets with an injury ; 
he sustains some wrong. He brings his action ; the 
jury give him ten or twenty pounds damages. The 
jury fancy that this sum will make him amends for 
what he has lost or suffered ; they fancy that of course 
he will get this sum. What would the jury think if 
told that he will never get a penny of it ? It will all go 
(and probably a good deal more) for extra costs ; that is, 
the costs the winning party will have to pay his own 
attorney, besides the costs in the cause which the loshig 
party has to pay. No one profits pecuniarily by that 
verdict or that trial, except the lawyers on either side. 
And does it not reduce the administration of justice to 
an absurdity, to think that in the majority of cases, the 
decision, no matter on which side, does no good to the 
man in whose favour it is given. 

Another thing which makes the courts of law a sad 
eight is, that probably in no scene in human affairs are 
disappointment and success set in so sharp contrast — 
brought so close together. There, on the bench, digni- 
fied, keen, always kind and polite (for the days of bully- 
ing have gone by), sits the Chief Justice — a peer (if he 
pleases to be one) — a great, distinguished, successful 
man ; his kindred all proud of him. And there, only a 
few yards off, sharp-featured, desponding, soured, sita 
poor Mr. Briefless, a disappointed man, living in lonely 
chambers in the Temple : a hermit in the great wilder- 
ness of London ; in short, a total failure in life. Very 
likely he absurdly over-estimates his talents, and what 
he could have done if he had had the chance ; but it is 
at least possible that he may have in him the genius of 
another Follett, wasting sadly and uselessly away. Now, 



118 COXCERNIXG SUMMER DAYS. 

of course, in all professions, and all walks of life, there 
are success and failure ; but there is none, I think, ic 
which poor failure must bear so keenly the trial of being 
daily and closely set in contrast with flushed success. 
Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown were rival suitors for the 
hand of Miss Jones ; Mr. Smith succeeded, and Mr. 
Brown failed ; but though Mr. Brown feels his morti- 
fication severely even as things are, it would be a great 
deal worse if he were compelled to follow at a hundred 
yards' distance Mr. Smith and Miss Jones in their moon- 
light walks, and contemplate their happiness ; to be pres- 
ent when they are married, and daily to attend them 
throughout their marriage excursion. Or some one else 
gets the bishopric you wished for ; but you are not 
obliged daily to contemplate the cathedral and the palace 
which you had hoped to call your own. In most cases 
in this world failure may look away from the success 
which makes its eyes sore and its heart heavy. You try 
to have a kindly feeling towards the man who succeeded 
where you failed, and in time you have it ; but just at 
first you would not have liked to have had ever before 
you the visible manifestation of his success and your 
failure. You must have a very sweet nature, and (let 
me say it) much help from a certain high Quarter, if, 
without the least envy, or jealousy, genially and un- 
soured, you can daily look upon the man who, without 
deserving to beat you, actually did beat you ; — at least 
while the wound is fresh. 

And while talking of disappointment and success in 
courts of law, let me remark, that petty success some- 
times produces, in vulgar natures, manifestations which 
are inexpressibly disgusting. Did you ever remark the 
exultation of some low attorney when he had succeeded 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 149 

in snapi)mg a verdict in some contemptible case which he 
had taken up and carried en upon speculation ? I have 
witnessed such a thing, and cannot but saj that it ap- 
peared to me one of the most revolting and disgusting 
paases which it is possible that human nature should 
assume. I think I see the dirty, oily-looking animal, 
at once servile and insolent, with trickery and rascality 
in every line of his countenance, rubbing his hands in 
the hour of his triumph, and bustling about to make im- 
mediate preparation for availing himself of it. And fol- 
lowing him, also sneakily exulting, I see an object 
more dirty, more oily-looking, than the low attorney ; it 
is the low attorney's clerk. And on such an occasion, 
gl mcing at the bench, when the judgment-seat was oc- 
cupied by a judge who had not yet learned never to look 
as if he thought or felt anything in particular, I have 
discerned upon the judicial countenance an expression of 
disgust as deep as my own. 

Pleasanter scenes come up this afternoon with the 
mention of summer days. I see depths of wood, where 
all the light is coolly green, and the rippling brook is 
crystal clear. I see vistas through pines, like cathedral 
vaults ; the space enclosed looks on a sunshiny day al- 
most black, and a bit of bright blue sky at the end of 
each is framed by the trees into the likeness of a Gothic 
window. I see walls of gray rock on either side of a 
river, noisy and brawling in winter time, but now quiet 
and low. For two or three miles the walls of rock stretch 
cnward ; there are thick woods above them, and here and 
there a sunny field : masses of ivy clothe the rock in 
places ; long sprays of ivy hang over. I walk on in 
thought till I reach the opening of the glen ; here a 



150 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

green ] ank slopes upward from a dark pool below, and 
there itS a fair stretch of champaign country beyond the 
river ; on the summit of the green bank, on this side, 
mouldering," grey, ivied, lonely, stand the ruins of the 
monastery, which has kept its place here for seven hun- 
dred years. I see the sky-framing eastern window, its 
tracery gone. There are masses of large daisies varying 
the sward, and the sweet fragrance of young clover is 
diffused through all the air, I turn aside, and walk 
through lines of rose-trees in their summer perfection. 
I hear the drowsy hum of the laden bees. Suddenly it 
is the twilight, the long twilight of Scotland, which would 
ftometimes serve you to read by at eleven o'clock at 
night. The crimson flush has faded from the bosom of 
the river ; if you are alone, its murmur begins to turn 
to a moan ; the white stones of the churchyard look spec- 
tral through the trees, I think of poor Doctor Adam, 
the great Scotch schoolmaster of the last century, the 
teacher of Sir Walter Scott, and his last words, when 
the shadow of death was falling deeper- — ' It grows dark, 
hoys ; you may go.* Then, with the professional bias, I 
go to a certain beautiful promise which the deepening 
twihght seldom fails to suggest to me ; a promise which 
tells us how the Christian's day shall end, how the day 
of life might be somewhat overcast and dreary, but ligfit 
should come on the darkened way at last. ' It shall come 
to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear nor 
dak. But it shall be one day which shall be known to 
the Lord, not day, nor night ; but it shall come to pass 
that at evening time it shall be light.' I think of various 
senses in which it might be shown that these words speak 
truly ; in which its great principle holds good, that signal 
blessing shall come when it is needed naost and expected 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 151 

least ; but I think mainly how, sometimes, at the close 
of the chequered and sober day, the Better Sun has 
broken through the clouds, and made the flaming west 
all purple and gold. I think how always the purer light 
comes, if not in this world, then in a better. Bowing 
his head to pass under the dark portal, the Christian lifts 
it on the other side, in the presence and the light of 
God. I think how you and I, my reader, may perhaps 
have stood in the chamber of death, and seen in the ho- 
rizon the summer sun in glory going down. But it is 
only to us who remain that the evening darkness is grow- 
ing — only for us that the sun is going down. Look on 
the sleeping features, and think, ' Thy sun shall no more 
go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw herself; for 
the Lord shall be thine everlasting hght, and the days of 
thy mourning shall be ended.' And then, my reader, 
tell me — as the evening falls on you, but not on him ; 
as the shadows deepen on you, but not on him ; as the 
darkness gathers on you, but not on him — if, in sober 
reality, the glorious promise has not found its perfect ful- 
filment, that ' at the evening time there shall be light ! ' 

Every one knows that Summer Days dispose one to a 
certain listlessly meditative mood. In cold weather, out 
of doors at least, you must move about actively ; it is 
only by the evening fireside, watching the dancing shad- 
ows, thq,t you have glimpses of this not wholly unprofit- 
able condition of mind. In summer-time you sometimes 
feel disposed to stand and look for a good while at the 
top of a large tree, gently waving about in the blue sky. 
You begin by thinking it would be curious to be up 
there : but there is no thought or speculation, moral, 
political, or religious, which may not come at the end of 



15 Z CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

the train started by the loftiest branches of the great 
beech. You are uble to sit for a considerable space in 
front of an ivied wall, and think out your sermon for 
Sunday as you look at the dark leaves in the sun. Above 
all, it is soothing and suggestive to look from a heighl 
at the soft outline of distant hills of modest elevation \ 
md to see, between yourself and them, many farm-housei 
and many little cottages > dotted here and there. There, 
under your eye, how much of life, and of the interests of 
life, is going on ! Looking at such things, you muse, in 
a vague, desultory way. I wonder whether when ordi- 
nary folk profess to be thinking, musing, or meditating, 
they are really thinking connectedly or to any purpose. 
I daresay the truth is they have (so to speak) given the 
mind its head ; laid the reins of the will on the mind's 
neck ; and are letting it go on and about in a wayward, 
interrupted, odd, semi-conscious way. They are not 
holding onward on any track of thought. I believe that 
common-place human beings can only get their ideas 
upon any subject into shape and order by writing them 
down, or (at least) expressing them in words to some 
one besides themselves. You have a walk of an hour 
before you : you resolve that you will see your way 
through some perplexed matter as you walk along ; your 
mind is really running upon it all the way : but when 
you have got within a hundred yards of your journey's 
end, you find with a start that you have made no progress 
at all ; you are as far as ever from seeing what to think 
or do. With most people, to meditate means to approach 
to doing nothing at all as closely as in the nature of hu- 
manity it is possible to do so. And in this sense of it, 
summer days, after your work is over, are the time for 
meditation So, indeed, are quiet days of autumn ; sa 



CONCERNING SUaOIER DAYS. 153 

tlie evening generally, when it is not cold. ' Isaac went 
out to meditate in the field, at the eventide.' Perhaps 
he thought of the progress of his crops, his flocks, his 
affairs : perhaps he thought of his expected wife : most 
probably he thought of nothing in particular ; for four 
thousand years have left human nature in its essence the 
selfsame thing. It would be miserable work to moon 
through life, never thinking except in this listless, pur- 
poseless way : but after hard work, when you feel the 
rest has been fairly earned, it is very delightful on such 
a day and in such a scene as this, to sit down and muse. 
The analogy which suggests itself to me is that of a car- 
riage-horse, long constrained to keep to the even track 
along hard dusty roads, drawing a heavy burden ; now 
turned free into a cool green field to wander, and feed, 
and roll about untrammelled. Even so does the mind, 
weary of consecutive thinking — of thinking in the track 
and thinking with a purpose — expatiate in the license 
of aimless meditation. 

There are various questions which may fitly be thought 
of in the listlessness of this summer day. They are ques- 
tions the consideration of wliich does not much excite ; 
questions to which you do not very much mind whether 
you get an answer or no. I have been thinking for a 
little while, since I finished the last paragraph, of this 
point : Whether that clergyman, undertaking the charge 
of some important church, is best equipped for his duty, 
who has a great many sermons carefully written and laid 
up in a box, ready to come out when needed ; or that 
other clergyman, who has very few sermons fully written 
out, but who has spent great pains in disciplining his mind 
*nto that state in which it shall always be able to produce 
good material. Which of these has made best progress 



154 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

towards the end of being a good and efficient preacher ? 
Give me, I should say, on the whole, the solid material 
stock, rather than the trained mind. I look with a curious 
feeling upon certain very popular preachers, who preach 
entirely extempore : who make a few notes of their skele* 
ton of thought ; but trust for the words and even for the 
illustrations to the inspiration of the moment. They go 
on boldly : but their path crumbles away behind them as 
they advance. Their minds are in splendid working 
order : they turn oif admirable work Sunday by Sunday ; 
and while mind and nervous system keep their spring, 
that admirable work may be counted on almost with cer-p 
tainty. They have Fortunio's purse : they can always 
put their hand upon the sovereigns they need: but they 
have no hoard accumulated which they might draw from, 
should the purse some day faih And remembering how 
much the success of the extempore speaker depends upon 
the mood of the moment : remembering what little things, 
mental and physical, may mar and warp the intellectual 
machine for the moment : remembering how entirely suc- 
cessful extempore speaking founds on perfect confidence 
and presence of mind : remembering how as one grows 
older the nervous system may get shaken and even broken 
down : remembering how the train of thought which your 
mind has produced melts away from you unless you pre- 
serve a record of it (for I am persuaded that to many 
men that which they themselves have written looks before 
very long as strange and new as that produced by another 
mind) : remembering these things, I say to myself, and to 
you if you choose to hsten : Write sermons diligently : 
write them week by week, and always do your very best : 
never make up your mind that this one shall be a third- 
rate affair, just to get the Sunday over ; and thus accu- 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 155 

mulate material for use in days when thoughts will not 
come so readily, and when the hand must write trembling- 
ly and slow. Don't be misled by any clap-trap about the 
finer thing being tq have the mental machine always 
equal to its task. You cannot have that. The mind is a 
wayward, capricious thing. The engine which did ita 
sixty miles an hour to-day, may be depended on (barring 
accident) to do as much to-morrow. But it is by no means 
certain that because you wrote your ten or twenty pages 
to-day, you will be able to do the like on another day. 
What educated man does not know, that when he sits 
down to his desk after breakfast, it is quite uncertain 
whether he will accomplish an ordinary task, or a double 
task, or a quadruple one ? Dogged determination may 
make sure, on almost every day, of a decent amount of 
produced material : but the quality varies vastly, and the 
quantity which the same degree and continuance of straia 
will produce is not a priori to be calculated. And a spin- 
ning-jenny will day by day produce thread of uniform 
quality : but a very clever man, by very great labour, 
will on some days write miserable rubbish. And no one 
will feel that more bitterly than himself. 

I pass from thinking of these things to 2i, matter some- 
what connected with them. Is it because preachers now- 
ii-days shrink from the labour of writing sermons for 
themselves, or is it because they distrust the quality of 
what they can themselves produce, that shameless plagia- 
rism is becoming so common ? One cannot but reflect, thus 
lazily inclined upon a summer day, what an amount of 
painful labour would be saved one if, instead of toiling to 
see the way through a subject, and then to set out one's 
views in an interesting and (if possible) an impressive 
manner, one had simply to go to the volumes of Mr. Mei- 



156 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

vill or Bishop Wilberforce or Dean Trencli ; or, if youi 
taste be of a different order, to those of Mr. Spurgeon, 
Mr. Punshon, or Mr. Stowell Brown — and copy out 
what you want. The manual labour might be consider- 
able — for one blessing of original comjDosition is, that it 
makes you insensible to the mere mechanical labour of 
writing, — but the intellectual saving would be tremen 
dous. I say nothing of the moral deterioration. I saj 
nothing as to what a mean, contemptible pickpocket, what 
a jackdaw in peacock's feathers, you will feel yourself. 
There is no kind of dishonesty which ought to be exposed 
more unsparingly. Whenever I hear a sermon preached 
which has been stolen, I shall make a point of informing 
every one who knows the delinquent. Let him get the 
credit which is his due. I have not read many published 
sermons, and I seldom hear any one preach except my- 
self; so that I do not speak from personal knowledge of 
the fact alleged by many, that there never was a period 
when this paltry lying and cheating was so prevalent. 
But five or six times within the last nine years I have 
listened to sermons in which there w^as not merely a man- 
ifest appropriation of thoughts which the preacher had 
never digested or made his own, but which were stolen 
word for word ; and I have been told by friends in whom 
I have implicit confidence of instances twice five or six. 
Generally, this dishonesty is practised by frightful block- 
heads, whose sole object perhaps is to get decently through 
a task for which they feel themselves unfit ; but it is much 
more irritating to find men of considerable talent, and of 
more than considerable popularity, practising it in a very 
gross degree. And it is curious how such dishonest per- 
sons gain in hardihood as they go on. Either because 
they really escape detection, or 'because no one tells them 



CONCERNING SUaOIER DAYS. 157 

that tliey have been detected, they come at length to pa 
rade themselves in their swindled finery upon the most 
public occasions. I do believe that, like I he liar who has 
told his story so long that he has come to believe it at last, 
there are persons who have stolen the thoughts of others 
so often and so long, that they hardly remember that (hey 
are thieves. And in two or three cases in which I put 
the matter to the proof, by speaking to the thief of the 
characteristics of the stolen composition, I found him 
quite prepared to carry out his roguery to the utmost, by 
talking of the trouble it had cost him to write Dr. New- 
man's or Mr. Logan's discourse. * Quite a simple matter 
— no trouble ; scribbled oflf on Saturday afternoon,' said, 
in my hearing, a man who had preached an elaborate 
sermon by an eminent Anglican divine. The reply was 
irresistible : ' Well, if it cost you little trouble, I am sure 
it cost Mr. Melvill a great deal.' 

I a/Ti speaking, you remark, of those despicable indi- 
viduals who falsely pass off as their own composition 
what they have stolen from some one else. I do not 
allude to such as follow the advice of Southey, and 
preach sermons which they honestly declare are not 
their own. I can see something that might be said in 
favour of the young inexperienced divine availing him- 
self of the experience of others. Of course, you may 
take the ground that it is better to give a good sermon 
by another man than a bad one of your own. Well, 
then, say that it is not your own. Every one knows that 
when a clergyman goes to the pulpit and gives out his 
text, and then proceeds with his sermon, the understand- 
ing is that he wrote that sermon for himself. If he did 
not write it, he is bound in common honesty to say so. 
But besides this, I deny the principle on which some 



158 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

justify the preaching of another man's sermon. I deny 
that it is better to give the good sermon of another thaii 
the middling one by yourself. Depend upon it, if you 
have those qualifications of head and heart that fit you 
for being in the Church at all, your own sermon, however 
inferior in literary merit, is the better sermon for you 
to give and for your congregation to hear ; it is the bet 
tcr fitted to accomplish the end of all worthy preaching, 
which, as you know, is not at all to get your hearers to 
think how clever a man you are. The simple, unam- 
bitious instruction into which you have thrown the teach- 
ings of your own little experience, and which you give 
forth from your own heart, will do a hundred times 
more good than any amount of ingenuity, brilliancy, or 
even piety, which you may preach at second-hand, with 
the feeling that somehow you stand to all this as an out- 
sider. If you wish honestly to do good, preach wh^t you 
haveyeZ^, and neither less nor more. 

But in no vray of regarding the case can any excuse 
be found for persons "who steal and stick into their dio-; 
courses tawdry little bits of bombast, purple patches of 
thought or sentiment, which cannot be supposed to do 
any good to anybody, which stand merely instead of a 
little stolen gilding for the gingerbread which is probably 
stolen too. I happened the other day to turn over a 
volume of discourses (not, I am thankful to say, by a 
clergyman of either of the national churches), and I 
came upon a sermon or lecture on Woman. You can 
imagine the kind of thing it was. It was by no means 
devoid of talent. The writer is plainly a clever, flip- 
pant person, with little sense, and no taste at all. The 
discourse sets out with a request that the audience ' would 
kindly try to keep awake by pinching one another in the 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 159 

leg, or giving some nodding neighbour a friendly pull of 
the hair ; ' and then there is a good deal about Woman^ 
in the style of a Yankee after-dinner speech in proposing 
such a toast. After a little we have a highly romantic 
description of a battle-field after the battle, in which 
gasping steeds, midnight ravens, spectral bats, moping 
owls, screeching vultures, howling night wolves appear. 
These animals are suddenly startled by a figure g,oing 
about with a lantern ' to find the one she loves.' Of 
course the figure is a woman ; and the paragraph winda 
up with the following passage : — 

Shall we go to her ? No ! Let her weep on. Leave her, &c. Oh, 
woman ! God beloved in old Jerusalem ! We need deal lightly with 
thy faults, if only for the agony thy nature will endure, in bearing 
heavy evidence against us on the day of judgment! 

Now, my friend, have you read Mr. Dickens' story of 
Martin ChuzzlewW^ Turn up the twenty-eighth chapter 
of that work, and in the closing sentence you may reacl 
as follows : — - 

Oh woman, God-beloved in old Jerusalem! The best among us 
need deal lightly with thy faults, if only for the punishment thy na- 
Uire will endure, in bearing heavy evidence against us on the Day of 
/udgraent ! 

J wonder whether the writer of the discourse imag- 
ined that by varying one or two words, and adopting 
small letters instead of capitals in alluding to the Last 
Day, he made this sentence so entirely his own as to jus- 
tify him in bagging it without one hint that it was a 
quotation. As for the value of the prcperty bagged, 
that is another question. 

After thinking for a few minutes of the curious con?- 
Btitution of mind which enables a man to feel his vanity 



IGO CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

flattered when he gets credit to which he knows he is 
not entitled, as the plagiarist does, I pass awaj into the 
vast field of thought which is afforded by the contempla- 
tion of human vanity in general. The Ettrick Shepherd 
was wont to say that when he tried a new pen, instead of 
writing his name, as most people do, he always wrote 
Solomon's famous sentence, All is vanity. But he did 
not understand the words in Solomon's sense : what he 
thought of was the limitless amount of self-conceit which 
exists in human beings, and which hardly any degree of 
mortification can (in many cases) cut down to a reason- 
able quantity. I find it difficult to arrive at any fixed 
law in regard to human self-conceit. It would be very 
pleasant if one could conclude that monstrous vanity is 
confined to tremendous fools ; but although the greatest 
intellectual self-conceit I have ever seen has been in 
blockheads of the greatest density and ignorance ; and 
although the greatest self-conceit of personal attractions 
has been in men and women of unutterable silliness ; 
still, it must be admitted that very great and illustrious 
members of the human race have been remarkable for 
their vanity. I have met very clever men, as well as 
very great fools, who would willingly talk of no other 
matters than themselves, and their own wonderful do- 
ings and attainments. I have known men of real ability, 
who were always anxious to impress you with the fact 
that they were the best riders, the best shots, the best 
jumpers, in the world ; who were always telling stories 
of the sharp things they said on trying occasions, and 
the extraordinary events which were constantly befalling 
them. When a clever man evinces this weakness, we 
must remember that human nature is a weak and imper- 
fect thing, and try to excuse the silliness for the sake of 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 161 

the real merit. But there are few things more irritating 
to witness than a stupid, ignorant dunce, wrapped up in 
impenetrable conceit of his own abilities and acquire- 
ments. It requires all the beauty, and all the listless- 
ness too, of this sweet summer day, to think, without the 
pulse quickening to an indignant speed, of the half-dozen 
such persons whom each of us has known. It would 
soothe and comfort us if we could be assured that the 
blockhead knew that he was a blockhead : if we could 
be assured that now and then there penetrated into the 
dense skull and reached the stolid brain, even the sus- 
picion of what his intellectual calibre really is. I greatly 
fear that such a suspicion never is known. If you wit- 
ness the perfect confidence with which the man is ready 
to express his opinion upon any subject, you will be quite 
surf Chat the man has not the faintest notion of what his 
opinion is worth. I remember a blockhead saying that 
certain lines of poetry were nonsense. He said that they 
were unintelligible ; that they were rubbish. I sugges-ted 
that it did not follow that they were uninteUiglble be- 
cause he could not understand them. I told him that 
various competent judges thought them very noble lines 
indeed. The blockhead stuck to his opinion with the 
utmost firmness. What was the use of talking to him ? 
If a blind man tells you he does not see the sun, and 
does not believe there is any sun, you ought to be sorry 
for him rather than angry with him. And when the 
blockhead declared that he saw only rubbish in verses 
which I trust every reader knows, and which begin with 
the line — 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 

his declaration merely showed that he lacked the power 
11 



162 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

to appreciate Mr. Tennyson. But I think, my thought- 
ful friend, you would have found it hard to pity him 
when you saw plainly that the poor blockhead despised 
and pitied you. 

The conceit of the stolid dunce is bad, but the conceit 
of the brisk and lively dunce is worse. The stolid dunco 
is comparatively quiet; his crass mind wcrks slowly; 
his vacant face wears an aspect of repose ; his talk is 
merely dull and twaddling. But the talk of the brisk 
dunce is ambitiously absurd : he lays down broad prin- 
ciples : he announces important discoveries which he has 
made : he has heard able and thoughtful men talk, and 
he tries to do that kind of thing. There is an inde- 
scribable jauntiness about him apparent in every word 
and gesture. As for the stolid dunce, you would be con- 
tent if the usages of society permitted your telling him 
that he is a dunce. As for the brisk dunce, you would 
like to take him by the ears and shake him. 

It is wonderful how ordinary, sensible persons, with 
nothing brilliant about them, may live daily in a comfort- 
able feeling that they are great geniuses : if they live 
constantly amid a little circle of even the most incompe- 
tent judges, who are always telling them that they are 
great geniuses. For it is natural to conclude that the 
opinion of the people whom you commonly see is a fair 
reflex of the opinion of all the world ; and it is wonder- 
ful how highly even a very able man will estimate the 
value of the opinion of even a very stupid man, provided 
the stupid man entertains and frequently expresses an 
immensely high opinion of the very able man, I havQ 
known a man, holding a somewhat important position for 
which he was grossly unfit, and for which every one 
knew he was grossly unfit; yet perfectly self-satisfied 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 163 

and comfortablfc! under circumstances which would have 
crushed many men, because he was kept up by two or 
three individuals who frequently assured him that he 
was a very eminent and useful person. These two or 
three individuals acted as a buffer between him and the 
estimate of mankind at large. He received their opinion 
as a fair sample of the general opinion. He was indeed 
a man of very moderate ability ; but I have known an- 
other of very great talent, who by the laudations of one 
or two old women was led to suppose that he possessed 
abilities of a totally different nattire from those which he 
actually possessed. I do not mean higher abilities, but 
abilities extending into a field into which his peculiar 
talents did not reach. Yet no one would have been 
sharper at discerning the worthlessness of the judgment 
of the old women had it been other than very flattering 
to himself. Who is there that does not know that some- 
times clever young men are bolstered up into a self- 
conceit which does them much harm with the outer 
world, by the violent admiration and flattery of their 
mothers, sisters, and aunts at home ? 

But not merely does the favourable estimate of thei 
little circle in which he lives serve to keep a man on 
good terms with himself; it goes some way towards in- 
fluencing the estimation in which he is held by mankind 
at large — so far, that is, as mankind at large know any- 
thing about him. I have known such a thing as a family 
whose several members were always informing everybody 
they met what noble fellows the other members of the 
family were. And I am persuaded that all this really 
had some result. They were fine fellows, no doubt ; but 
this tended to make sure that they should not be hid 
unde.i' a bushel. I am persuaded that if half-a-dozen 



164 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

clever young men were to form themselves into a littlo 
association, each member of which should be pledged to 
lose no opportunity of crying up the other five members 
in conversation, through the press, and in every other 
possible way, this would materially further their success 
in life and the estimation in which they would be held 
wherever known. The world would take them at the 
value so constantly dinned into its ear. When you read 
on a silver coin the legend one shilling, you readily take 
it for a shilling ; and if a man walks about with great 
genius painted upon him in large red letters, many peo- 
ple will accept the truth of the inscription. Every one 
has seen how a knot of able young men hanging together 
at college and in after life can help one another even in 
a material sense, and not less valuably by keeping up 
one another's heart. All this is quite fair, and so is even 
the mutual praise when it is hearty and sincere. For 
several months past I have been possessed of an idea 
which has been gradually growing into shape. I have 
thought of getting up an association, whose members 
should always hold by one another, be true to one an- 
other, and cry one another up. A friend to whom I 
mentioned my plan highly approved it, and suggested 
the happy name of the Mutual Exaltation Society. 
The association would be limited in number : not mere 
than fifty members could be admitted. It would include 
educated men in all walks of life ; more particularly 
men whose success in life depends in any measure upon 
the estimation in which .they are commonly held, as bar- 
risters, preachers, authors, and the like. Its purposes 
and operations have already been indicated with as much 
fulness as would be judicious at the present juncture. 
Mr. Barnum and Messrs. Moses and Son would be con- 



CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 165 

suited on the details. Sir John Ellesmere, ex-sohcitor- 
general and author of the Essay on the Arts of Self- Ad- 
vancement, would be the first president, and the general 
guide, philosopher, and friend of the Mutual Exaltation 
Society. The present writer will be secretary. The 
only remuneration he would expect would be that all the 
members should undertake, at least six times every day, 
to make favourable mention of a recently published work. 
Six times a day would they be expected to say promiscu- 
ously to any intelligent friend or stranger, 'Have you 
read the Recreations of a Country Parson ? Most won- 
derful book ! Not read it ? Go to Mudie's and get it 
jflirectly ' — and the like. For obvious reasons it would 
not do to make public the names of the members of the 
association ; the moral weight of their mutual laudation 
would be much diminished. But clever young men in 
various parts of the country who may desire to join the 
society, may make application to the Editor of Eraser's 
Magazine, enclosing testimonials of moral and intellect- 
ual character. Applications will be received until the 
First of April, 1861. 

I wonder whether any real impression is produced by 
those puffing paragraphs which appear in country news- 
papers about some men, and which are written either 
by the men themselves or by their, near relatives and 
friends. I think no impression is ever produced upon 
intelligent people, and no permanent impression upon 
any one. Still, among a rural population, there may be 
founvi those who believe all that is printed in a news- 
paper ; and who think that the man who is mentioned in 
a newspaper is a very great man. And if you live 
among such, it is pleasant to be regarded by them as 



166 CONCERNING SUM^IER DAYS. 

a hero. The Reverend Mr. Smith receives from his 
parishioners the gift of a silver salver : the county paper 
of the following Friday contains a lengthy paragraph re- 
cording the fact, and giving the reverend gentleman's 
feeling and appropriate reply. The same worthy clergy- 
man preaches a charity sermon: and the circumstance 
is recorded Very fully, the eloquent peroration being 
given with an accuracy w^hich says much for the per- 
fection of provincial reporting — given, indeed, word for 
word. Now it is natural to think that Mr. Smith is a 
much more eminent man than those other men whose 
salvers and charity sermons find no place in the news- 
paper : and Mr. Smith's agricultural parishioners no« 
doubt think so. A different opinion is entertained by 
such as know that Mr. Smith's uncle is a large propri- 
etor in the puffing newspaper; and that he wrote the 
articles in question in a much warmer strain than that 
in which they appeared, the editor having sadly curtailed 
and toned them down. In the long run, all this quack- 
ery does no good. And indeed long accounts in provin- 
cial journals of family matters, weddings and the like, 
serve only to make the family in question laughed at. 
Still, they do harm to nobody. They are very inno- 
cent. They please the family whose proceedings are 
chronicled ; and if the family are laughed at, why, they 
don't know it. 

And, happily, that which we do not know does us no 
harm : at least, gives us no pain. And it is a law, a 
kindly and a reasonable law, of civilized life, that when 
it is not absolutely necessary that a man should know 
that which would give him pain, he shall not be told of 
It. Only the most malicious violate this law. Even 
they cannot do it long : for they come to be excluded 



CONCERNING SmiMER DAYS. l6? 

from society as its common enemies. One great charac- 
teristic of educated society is this : it is always under a 
certain degree of Restraint. Nobody, in public, speaks 
out all his mind. Nobody tells the whole truth, at least, 
in public speeches and writings. It is a terrible thing 
when an inexperienced man in Parliament (for instance) 
blurts out the awkward fact which everybody knows, but 
of which nobody is to speak except in the confidence 
of friendship or private society. How such a man is 
hounded down ! He is every one's enemy. Every one 
is afraid of him. No one knows what he may say next. 
Arid it is quite fit that he should be stopped. Civilized 
life could not otherwise go on. It is quite right (when 
you calmly reflect upon it) that the county paper, speak- 
ing of the member of Parliament, should tell us how this 
much-respected gentleman has been visiting his constitu- 
entSj but should suppress a good deal of the speech he 
made, which the editor (though of the same politics) tells 
you frankly was worthy only of an escaped lunatic. Above 
all, it is fit and decent that the very odd private life and 
character of the legislator should be by tacit consent 
ignored even by the journals most opposed to him. It 
is right that kings and nobles should be, for the most 
part, spoken of in public as if they actually were what 
they ought to be. It is something of a reminder and a 
rebuke to them : and it is just as well that mankind at 
laj'ge should not know too much of the actual fact as to 
those above them. I should never object to calling a 
graceless duke Your Grace : nor to praying for a vil- 
lanously bad monarch as our most religious av^d gracious 
King (I know quite well, small critic, that religious is an 
absurd mistranslation : but let us take the liturgy in the 
nense in which ninety -nine out of every hundred who 



168 CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS. 

hear it understand it) : for it seems to me that the daily 
recurring phrases are something ever suggesting what 
mankind have a right to expect from those in eminent 
station ; and a kindly determination to believe that such 
are at least endeavoring to be what they ought. No 
doubt there is often most bitter rebuke in the names! 
This law of Restraint extends to all the doings of civ- 
ilized men. No one does anything to the very utmost 
of his ability. No one speaks the entire truth, unless in 
confidence. No one exerts his whole bodily strength. 
No one ever spoke at the very top of his voice, unless 
in mortal extremity. Unquestionably, the feeling tha^ 
you must work within limits curtails the result accom 
plished. You may see this in cases in which the re- 
straint of the civilized man binds him no longer. A man 
delirious or mad needs four men to hold him : there is 
no restraint keeping in his exertions ; and you see what 
physical energy can do when utterly unlimited. And a 
man who always spoke out in public the entire truth 
about all men and all things, would inspire I know not 
what of terror. He would be like a mad Malay run- 
ning a muck, dagger in hand. If the person who in a 
deliberative assembly speaks of another person as his 
venerable friend, were to speak of him there as he did 
half an hour before in private, as an obstructive old idioU 
how people would start ! It would be like the bare bonea 
of the skeleton showing through the fair covering of flesh 
and blood. 

The shadows are lengthening eastward now ; the sum- 
mer day will soon be gone. And looking about on this 
beautiful world, I think of a poem by Bryant, in which he 
tells us how, gazing on the sky and the mountains in June, 



CONCERNING SUIVBIER DAYS. 169 

he wished that when his time should come, the green turf 
of summer might be broken to make his grave. He could 
not bear, he tells us, the idea of being borne to his rest- 
ing-place through sleety winds, and covered with icy 
clods. Of course, poets give us fanciful views, gained by 
looking at one side of a picture : and De Quincey some- 
where states the opposite opinion, that death seems sadder 
in summer, because there is a feeling that in quitting this 
world our friend is losing more. It will not matter much, 
friendly reader, to you and me, what kind of weather 
there may be on the day of our respective funerals ; 
though one would wish for a pleasant, sunshiny time. 
And let us humbly trust that when we go, we may find 
admission to a Place so beautiful, that we shall not miss 
the green fields and trees, the roses and honeysuckle of 
June. You may think, perhaps, of another reason besides 
Bryant's, for preferring to die in the summer time ; you 
remember the quaint old Scotch lady, dying on a night of 
rain and hurricane, who said (in entire simplicity and 
with nothing of irreverence) to the circle of relations 
round her bed, ' Eh, what a fearfu' nicht for me to be 
fleein* through the air ! ' And perhaps it is natural to 
think it would be pleasant for the parted spirit, passing 
away from human ken and comfort, to mount upwards, 
angel-guided, through the soft sunset air of June, towards 
the country where suns never set, and where all the days 
are summer days. But all this is no better than a way- 
ward fancy ; it founds on forgetfulness of the nature of the 
immaterial soul, to think that there need be any length- 
ened journey, or any flight through skies either stormy 
or calm. You have not had the advantage, I dare say, of 
being taught in your childhood the catechism which is 
drilled into all children in Scotland; and which sketches 



170 CONCEKNING SUMIHER DAYS. 

out witli admirable clearness and precision the elementa 
of Christian belief. If you had, you would have been 
taught to repeat words which put away all uncertainty as 
to the intermediate state of departed spirits. ' The souls 
of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, 
and do immediately pass into glory.' Yes ; immediate- 
ly ; there is to the departed spirit no middle space at all 
between earth and heaven. The old lady need not have 
looked with any apprehension to going out from the warm 
chamber into the stormy winter night, and flying far away. 
Not but that millions of miles may intervene ; not but 
that the two worlds may be parted by a still, breathless 
ocean, a fathomless abyss of cold dead space ; yet, swift 
as never light went, swift as never thought went, flies the 
just man's spirit across the profound. One moment the 
sick-room, the scaffold, the stake ; the next, the paradisal 
glory. One moment the sob of parting anguish ; the next 
the great deep swell of the angel's song. Never think, 
reader, that the dear ones you have seen die, had far to 
go to meet God after they parted from you. Never think, 
parents who have seen your children die, that after they 
left you, they had to traverse a dark solitary way, along 
"which you would have liked (if it had been possible) to 
lead them by the hand, and bear them company till they 
rame into the presence of God. You did so, if you stood 
by them till the last breath was drawn. You did bear 
them company into God's very presence, if you only 
gtfiyed beside them till they died. The moment they left 
yon, they were with him. The slight pressure of the cold 
fingers lingered with you yet; but the little child waa 
with his Saviour. 




CHAPTER YI. 
CONCERNING SCREWS: 

BEING THOUGHTS ON THE PRACTICAL SERVICE OP 

IMPERFECT MEANS. 

A CONSOLATORY ESSAY. 

'5S\, LMOST every man is what, if he were a 
horse, would be called a screw. Almost 
every man is unsound. Indeed, my reader, 
•^ I might well say even more than this. It 
would be no more than truth, to say that there does not 
breathe any human being who could satisfactorily pass 
a thorough examination of his physical and moral na- 
ture by a competent inspector. 

I do not here enter on the etymological question, why 
an unsound horse is called a screw. Let that be dis- 
cussed by abler hands. Possibly the phrase set out at 
length originally ran, that an unsound horse was an an- 
imal in whose constitution there was a screw loose. 
And the jarring effect produced upon any machine by 
looseness on the part of a screw which ought to be tight, 
is well known to thoughtful and experienced minds. 
By a process of gi-adual abbreviation, the phrase indi- 
cated passed into the simpler statement, that the unsound 
fiteed was himself a screw. By a bold transition, by a 
lubtle intellectual process, the thing supposed to be 



172 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

wrong in the animal's physical system was taken to 
mean the animal in whose physical system the thing 
was wrong. Or, it is conceivable that the use of the 
w^ord screw implied that the animal, possibly in early 
youth, had got some unlucky twist or wrench, which 
permanently damaged its bodily nature, or warped its 
moral development. A tendon perhaps received a tug 
which it never quite got over. A joint was suddenly 
turned in a direction in which Nature had not contem- 
plated its ever turning : and the joint never played quite 
smoothly and sweetly again. In this sense, we should 
discern in the use of the word screw, something analo- 
gous to the expressive Scotticism, which savs of a per- 
verse and impracticable man, that he is a thrtewn person ; 
that is, a person who has got a thraw or twist ; or rather, 
a person the machinery of whose mind works as machin- 
ery might be conceived to work w4iich had got a thraw 
or twist. The reflective reader will easily discern that 
a complex piece of machinery, by receiving an unlucky 
twist, even a slight twist, would be put into a state in 
which it would not go sweetly, or would not go at all. 

After this excursus, which I regard as not unworthy 
the attention of the eminent Dean of Westminster, who 
has for long been, through his admirable works, my 
guide and philosopher in all matters relating to the 
study of words, I recur to the grand principle laid down 
at the beginning of the present dissertation, and say de- 
liberately, 'that ALMOST EVERY MAN THAT LIVES, IS 
WHAT, IF HE WERE A HORSE, WOULD BE CALLED A 

SCREW. Almost every man is unsound. Every man 
(to use the language of a veterinary surgeon) has in him 
the seeds of unsoundness. You could not honestly give 
a warranty with almost any mortal. Al-as ! my brother ; 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 173 

in the highest and most solemn of all respects, if sound- 
ness ascribed to a creature implies that it is what i* 
ought to be, who shall venture to warrant anj man 
sound ! 

I do not mean to make my readers uncomfortable, by 
suggesting that every man is physically unsound : I epeak 
of intellectual and moral unsoundness. You know, the 
most important thing about a horse is his body ; and ac- 
cordingly when we speak of a horse's soundness or un- 
soundness, we speak physically ; we speak of his body. 
But the most important thing about a man is his mind ; 
and so, when we say a man is sound or unsound, we are 
thinking of mental soundness or unsoundness. In short, 
the man is mainly a soul ; the horse is mainly and es- 
sentially a body. And though the moral qualities even 
of a horse are of great importance, — such qualities as 
vice (which in a horse means malignity of temper), ob- 
stinacy, nervous shyness (which carried out into its prac- 
tical result becomes shying) ; still the name of screw is 
chiefly suggestive of physical defects. Its main refer- 
ence is to wind and limb. The soundness of a horse is 
to the philosophic and stable mind suggestive of goo.d 
legs, shoulders, and hoofs ; of uncongested lungs and free 
air-passages ; of efficient eyes and entire freedom from 
staggers. It is the existence of something wrong in 
these matters which constitutes the unsound horse, or 
screw. V 

But though the great thing about rational and immor- 
tal man is the soul : and though accordingly the most im- 
portant soundness or unsoundness about Mm is that which 
has its seat there ; stiL, let it be said that even as re- 
gards physical soundness there are few men whom a vet- 
erinary surgeon would pass, if they were horses. Most 



174 CONCERNING SCREWS 

educated men are physically in very poor condition. 
And particularly the cleverest of our race, in whom in- 
tellect is most developed and cultivated, are for the most 
part in a very unsatisfactory state as regards bodily 
soundness. They rub on : they manage somehow to 
get through their work in life ; but they never feel brisk 
or buoyant. They never know high health, with its at 
tendant cheerfulness. It is a rare case to find such a 
combina tion of muscle and intellect as existed in Chris- 
topher North : the commoner type is the shambling 
Wordsworth, whom even his partial sister thought so 
tD.ean-looking when she saw him walking with a hand- 
some man. Let it be repeated, most civilized men are 
physically unsound. For one thing, most educated men 
are broken-winded. They could not trot a quarter of a 
mile v/ithout great distress. I have been amused, when 
in church I have heard a man beyond middle age sing- 
ing very loud, and plainly proud of his volume of voice, 
to se3 how the last note of the line was cut short for 
want of wind. I say nothing of such grave signs of 
physical unsoundness as little pangs shooting about the 
heart, and little dizzinesses of the brain ; these matters 
are too serious for this page. But it is certain that edu- 
cated men, for the most part, have great portions of their 
muscular system hardly at all developed, through want 
of exercise. The legs of even hard brain-workers are 
gen erally exercised a good deal ; for the constitutional 
ex(rcise of such is usually walking. But in large town 
su( h men give fair play to no other thews and sinews. 
M.)ve especially the arms of such men are very flabby. 
Tlie muscle is soft, and slender. If the fore legs of a 
horse were like that, you could not rido him but at the 
risk of your neck. 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 175 

Still, the great thing about man is the mind ; and when 
I set out by declaring that almost every man is unsound, 
I was thinking of mental unsoundness. Most minds are 
unsound. No horse is accepted as sound in which the 
practised eye of the veterinarian can find some physical 
defect, something away from normal development and 
action. And if the same rule be applied to us, my read- 
ers ; if every man is mentally a screw, in whose intel- 
lectual and moral development a sharp eye can detect 
something not right in the play of the machinery or the 
formation of it; then I fancy that we may safely lay it 
down as an axiom, that there is not upon the face of the 
earth a perfectly sane man. A sane mind means a 
healthy mind ; that is, a mind that is exactly what it 
ought to be. Where shall we discover sucli a one ? My 
reader, you have not got it. I have not got it. Nobody 
has got it. No doubt, at the first glance, this seems 
startling ; but I intend this essay to be a consolatory one, 
and I Avish to show you that in this world it is well if 
means will fairly and decently suffice for their ends, 
even though they be very far from being all that we 
could wish. God intends not that this world should go 
on upon a system of optimism. It is enough, if things 
are so, that they will do. They might do far better. 
And let us remember, that though a veterinary surgeon 
would tell you that there is hardly such a thing as a per- 
fectly sound horse in Britain, still in Britain there is 
very much work done, and well done, by horses. Even 
so, much work, fair work, passable work, noble work, 
magnificent work, may be turned off, and day by day 
is turned off, by minds which, in strict severity, are no 
y ^tter than good, workable, or showy screws. 

M^ny minds, otherwise good and even noble, are un- 



176 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

Bound upon the point of Vanity. Nor is the unsoundnesa 
one that requires any very sharp observer to detect. It is 
very often extremely conspicuous ; and the merest block- 
head can discern, and can laugh at, the unfortunate de- 
fect in one who is perhaps a great and excellent man. 
Many minds are off the balance in the respect of Suspi- 
ciousness ; many in that of absurd Prejudice. Many are 
nsound in the matters of Silliness, Pettiness, Pettedness, 
Perversity, or general Unpleasantness and Thrawn-ness, 
Multitudes of men are what in Scotland is called Cat- 
wilted. I do not know whether the word is intelligible 
in England. It implies a combination of littleness of 
nature, small self-conceit, readiness to take offence, deter- 
mination in little things to have one's own way, and general 
impracticability. There are men to whom even the 
members of their own families do not like to talk about 
their plans and views : who will suddenly go off on a long 
journey without telling any one in the house till the min- 
ute before they go ; and concerning whom their nearest 
relatives think it right to give you a hint that they are 
rather peculiar in temper, and you must mind how you 
talk to them. There are human beings whom to manage 
into doing the simplest and most obvious duty, needs, on 
your part, the tact of a diplomatist combined with the skill 
of a driver of refractory pigs. In short, there are in hu- 
man beings all kinds of mental twists and deformities. 
There are mental lameness and broken-windedness. Men- 
tal and moral shying is extremely common. As for biting, 
who does not know it ? We have all seen human biters ; 
not merely backbiters, but creatures who like to leave the 
marks of their teeth upon people present too. There are 
many kickers ; men who in running with others do (so 
to speak) kick«.over the traces, and viciously lash out aJ 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 177 

their companions with little or no provocation. There 
are men who are always getting into quarrels, though in 
the main warm-hearted and well-meanino:. There are 
human jibbers : creatures that lie down in the shafts in- 
stead of manfully (or horsefully) putting their neck to 
the collar, and going stoutly at the work of life. There 
are multitudes of people who are constantly suffering from 
dtipression of spirits, a malady which appears in countless 
forms. There is not a human being in whose mental 
constitution there is not something wrong ; some weak- 
ness, some perversion, some positive vice. And if you 
want further proof of the truth of what I am saying, given 
by one whose testimony is worth much more than mine, 
go and read that eloquent and kindly and painfully fas- 
cmating book lately published by Dr. Forbes Winslow, 
on Ohsiure Diseases of the Brain and Mind; and you 
will leave off with the firmest conviction that every breath- 
ing mortal is mentally a screw. 

And yet, my reader, if you have some knowledge of 
horse-;3esh, and if you have been accustomed in your 
progress through life (in the words of Dr. Johnson) to 
practise observation, and to look about you with extensive 
view, your survey must have convinced you that great 
part of the coaching and other horse work of this country 
is done, and fairly done, by screws. These poor crea- 
tures are out in all kinds of weather, and it seems to do 
tiem little harm. Any one who knows how snug, dry, 
and warm a gentleman's horses are kept, and how often 
with all that they are unfit for their duty, will wonder to 
see poor cab horses shivering on the stand hour after 
hour on a winter day, and will feel something of respect 
mingle with his pity for the thin, patient, serviceable 
screws. Horses that are lame, broken-winded, an(J 

12 



178 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

vicious, pull the great bulk of all tlie weight that horses 
pull. And they get through their work somehow. Not 
long since, sitting on the box of a highland coach of most 
extraordinary shape, I travelled through Glenorchy and 
along Loch Awe side. The horses were wretched to look 
hX, yet they took the coach at a good pace ovei' that very 
ip and down road, which was divided into very long 
stages. At last, amid a thick wood of dwarf oaks, the 
coach stopped to receive its final team. It was an extra- 
ordinary place for a coach to change horses. There was 
not a house near : the horses had walked three miles from 
their stable. They were by far the best team that had 
drawn the coach that day. Four tall greys, nearly white 
with age ; but they looked well and went well, checking 
the coach stoutly as they went down the precipitous de- 
scents, and ascending the opposite hills at a tearing gal- 
lop. No doubt you could see various things amiss. They 
were blowing a little ; one or two were rather blind ; and 
all four a little stilF at starting. They were all screws. 
The dearest of them had not cost the coach proprietor 
seven pounds ; yet how well they went over the eleven- 
mile stage into Inverary ! 

Now in like manner, a great part of the mental work 
that is done, is done by men who mentally are screws. 
The practical e very-day work of life is done, and respect- 
ably done, by very silly, weak, prejudiced people. Mr. 
Carlyle has stated, that the population of Britain consista 
of ' seventeen millions of people, mostly fools.' I shall 
endeavour by and bye to make some reservation upon 
the great author's sweeping statement ; but here it ii.« 
enough to remark that even Mr. Carlyle would admit that 
the very great majority of these seventeen millions get 
very decently and creditably through the task which God 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 179 

Bets tliem in this world. Let it be admitted that they 
are not so wise as they should be ; jet surely it may 
be admitted too, that they possess that in heart and 
head which makes them good enough for the rough and 
homely wear of life. No doubt they blow and occasionally 
stumble, they sometimes even bite and kick a little ; yet 
somehow they get the coach along. For it is to be re- 
membered that the essential characteristic of a screw is, 
that tliough unsound, it can yet by management be got to 
go through a great deal of work. The screw is not dead 
lame, nor only fit for the knacker ; it falls far short of the 
perfection of a horse, but still it is a horse, after all, and 
it can fulfil in some measure a horse's duty. You see, 
my friend, the moderation of my view. I do not say that 
men in general are mad, but only that men in general 
are screws. There is a little twist in their intellectual 
or moral nature; there is something wanting or some- 
thing wrong ; they are silly, conceited, egotistical, and the 
like ; yet decently equal to the work of this world. By 
judicious management you may get a great deal of wor- 
thy work out of the unsound minds of other men ; and 
out of your own unsound mind. But always remember 
that you have an imperfect and warped machine to get 
on with ; do not expect too much of it ; and be ready 
to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse 
which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and 
Bkill b3 made to get creditably through a wonderful 
amount of labour ; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, 
prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled 
to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may 
be the better. A human being who is really very weak 
and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to 
his fellow men, or which shall at the least amuse them. 



180 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

But as you carefully drive an unsound horse, walking liirn 
at first starting, not trotting him down hill, making play 
at parts of the road which suit him ; so you must manage 
many men, or they will break down or bolt out of the 
path. Above all, so you must manage your own mind, 
whose weaknesses and wrong impulses you know best, 
if you would keep it cheerful, and keep it in working 
order. The showy, unsound horse can go well perhaps, 
but it must be shod with leather, otherwise it would be 
dead-lame in a mile. And just in that same fashion we 
human beings, all more or less of screws mentally and 
morally, need all kinds of management, on the part of 
our friends and on our own part, or we should go all 
wrong. There is something truly fearful when we find 
that clearest-headed and soberest-hearted of men, the 
great Bishop Butler, telling us that all his life long he 
was struggling with horrible morbid suggestions, devilish 
is what he calls them, which, but for being constantly 
held in check with the sternest effort of his nature, w^ould 
have driven him mad. Oh, let the uncertain, unsound, 
unfathomable human heart be wisely and tenderly driven ! 
And as there are things which with the unsound horse 
you dare not venture on at all, so with the fallen mind. 
You who know your own horse, know that you dare not 
trot him hard down hill. And you who know your own 
mind and heart, know that there are some things of 
which you dare not think ; thoughts on which your only 
safety is resolutely to turn your back. The management 
needful here is the management of utter avoidance. How 
often we find poor creatures who have passed through 
years of anxiety and misery, and experienced savage and 
deliberate cruelty which it is best to forget, lashing them- 
selves up to wrath and bitterness by brooding over these 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 181 

tilings, on wliicli wisdom would bid them try to close their 
eyes for ever ! 

But not merely do screws daily draw cabs and stage- 
coaches : screws have won the Derby and the St. Leger. 
A noble-looking thorough-bred has galloped by the win- 
ning-post at Epsorii at the rate of forty miles an hour, 
with a white bandage tightly tied round one of its fore- 
legs : and thus publicly confessing its unsoundness, anil 
testifying to its trainer's fears, it has beaten a score of 
steeds which were not screws, and borne off from them 
the blue ribbon of the turf. Yes, my reader : not only 
will skilful management succeed in making unsound ani- 
mals do decently the hum-drum and prosaic task-work of 
the equine world ; it will succeed occasionally in making 
unsound animals do in magnificent style the grandest 
things that horses ever do at all. Don't you see the 
analogy I mean to trace ? Even so, not merely do 
Mr. Carlyle's seventeen millions of fools get somehow 
through the petty work of our modern life, but minds 
which no man could warrant sound and free from vice, 
turn off some of the noblest work that ever was done 
by mortal. Many of the grandest things ever done by 
human minds, have been done by minds that were incur- 
able screws. Think of the magnificent service done to 
humankind by James Watt. It is positively impossible 
to calculate what we all owe to the man that gave us 
fhs steam-engine. It is sober truth that the inscription 
in Westminster Abbey tells, when it speaks of him as 
among the * best benefactors ' of the race. Yet what an 
unsound organization that great man had ! Mentally, 
what a screw ! Through most of his life he suffered the 
deepest misery from desperate depression of spirits ; he 
was always fancying that his mind was breaking down • 



182 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

he has himself recorded that he often thouglit of casting 
off, bj suicide, the unendurable burden of life. And 
still, what work the rickety machine got through ! With 
tearing headaches, with a sunken chest, with the least 
muscular of limbs, with the most melancholy of tempera- 
ments, worried and tormented by piracies of his great 
inventions, yet doing so much and doing it so nobly, was 
not James Watt like the lame race-horse that won the 
Derby ? As for Byron, he was unquestionably a very 
great man ; and as a poet, he is in his own school with- 
out a rival. Still, he was a screw. There was some- 
thing morbid and unsound about his entire development. 
In many respects he was extremely silly. It was ex- 
tremely silly to take pains to represent that he was 
morally much worse than he really was. The greatest 
blockheads I know are distinguished by the same char- 
acteristic. Oh, empty-headed Noodle ! who have more 
than once dropped hints in my presence as to the awful 
badness of your life, and the unhappy insight which your 
life has given you into the moral rottenness of society, 
don't do it again. I always thought you a contemptible 
fool ; but next time I mean to tell j^ou so. Wordsworth 
was a screw. Though one of the greatest of poets, he 
was dreadfully twisted by inordinate egotism and vanity : 
the result partly of original constitution, and partly of 
living a great deal too much alone in that damp and 
misty lake country. He was like a spavined horse. 
Coleridge, again, was a jibber. He never would pull 
in the team of life. There is something unsound in the 
mind of the man who fancies that because he is a genius, 
he need not support his wife and children. Even the 
sensible and exemplary Southey was a little unsound in 
the matter of a crotchety temper, needlessly ready to 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 183 

take offence. He was always quarrelling with his asso- 
ciates in the Quarterly Review : with the editor and the 
publisher. Perhaps you remember how on one occasion 
he wrought himself up into a fever of wrath with Mr. 
Murray, because that gentleman suggested a subject on 
which he wished Southey to write for the Quarterly, and 
begged him to put Ms whole strength to it, the subject 
being one which was just then of great interest and 
importance. ' Flagrant insolence/ exclaimed Southey. 
* Think of the fellow bidding me put my whole strength 
to an article in his six-shilling Review 1 ' Now, reader, 
there you see the evil consequence of a man who is a little 
of a. screw in point of temper, living in the country. Most 
reasonable men would never have discerned any insult 
in Mr. Murray's request : but even if such a one had 
thought it a shade too authoritatively expressed, he 
would, if he had lived in town, gone out to the crowded 
street, gone down to his club, and in half an hour have 
entirely forgotten the little disagreeable impression. 
But a touchy man, dwelling in the country, gets the ir- 
ritative letter by the morning's post, is worried by it all 
the forenoon, and goes out and broods on the offence 
through all his solitary afternoon walk, — a walk in 
which he does not see a face, perhaps, and certainly 
does not exchange a sentence with any human being 
whose presence is energetic enough to turn the current 
of thought into a healthier direction. And so, by the 
evening he has got the little offence into the point of 
view in which it looks most offensive : he is in a rajje at 
being asked to do his best in writing anything for a six- 
shilhng publication. Why on earth not do so ? Is not 
the mind unsoundly sensitive that finds an offence in a 
request like that ? My brilliant brethren who write for 



184 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

Fraser, don't you put your whole strength to articles tc 
be published in a periodical that sells for half-a-crown ? 

You could not have warranted manly Samuel Johnson 
sound, on the points of prejudice and bigotry. There 
was something unsound in that unreasoning hatred of - 
everything Scotch. Rousseau was altogether a screw. 
lie was mentally lame, broken-winded, a shyer, a kicker, 
ft jibber, a biter : he would do anything but run right on 
and do his duty. Shelley was a notorious screw. I 
should say, indeed, that his unsoundness passed the limit 
of practical sanity, and that on certain points he was un- 
questionably mad. You could not have warranted Keats 
sound. You could not deny the presence of a little per- 
verse twist even in the noble mind and heart of the 
great Sir Charles Napier. The great Emperor Napoleon 
was cracky, if not cracked, on various points. There 
was unsoundness in his strange belief in his Fate. Nei- 
ther Bacon nor Newton was entirely sound. But the 
mention of Newton suggests to me the single specimen 
of human kind who might stand even before him : and 
reminds me that Shakspeare was as sound as any mortal 
ean be. Any defect in him extends no farther than to his 
taste : and possibly where we should differ from him, he 
is right and we are wrong. You could not say that 
Shakspeare was mentally a screw. The noblest of all 
genius is sober and reasonable : it is among geniuses of 
the second order that you find something so warped, so 
eccentric, so abnormal, as to come up to our idea of a 
screw. Sir Walter Scott was sound: save perhaps in 
the matter of his veneration for George IV., and of 
hij desire to take rank as one of the country gentlemen 
of Roxburghshire. 

To sum up : let it be admitted that very noble work 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 185 

has been turned off by minds in so far unhinged. It is 
not merely that great wits are to madness near allied, it 
is that great wits are sometimes actually in part mad. 
Madness is a matter of degree. The slightest departure 
from the normal and healthy action of the mind is aa 
approximation to it. Every mind is a little unsound ; 
but you don't talk of insanity till the unsoundness becomes 
very glaring, and unfits for the duty of life. Just as al- 
most every horse is a little lame : one leg steps a hair- 
breadth shorter than the other, or is a thought less mus- 
cular, or the hoof is a shade too sensitive ; but you don't 
talk of lameness till the creature's head begins to go up 
and down, or till it plainly shrinks from putting its foot to 
the ground. Southey's wrath about the six-shilling Re^ 
view, and his brooding on Murray's slight offence, was a 
step in the direction of marked delusion such as conveys 
a man to Hanwell or Morningside. And the sensitive, 
imaginative nature, which goes to the production of some 
of the human mind's best productions, is prone to such 
little deviations from that which is strictly sensible and 
right. You do not think, gay young readers, what poor 
unhappy half-cracked creatures may have written the 
pages which thrill you or amuse you ; or painted the 
picture before which you pause so long. I know hardly 
any person who ever published anything ; but I have 
sometimes thought that I should like to see assembled in 
one chamber, on the first of any month, all the men and 
women who wrote all the articles in all the magazines for 
*hat month. Some of them doubtless would be very 
much like other people ; but mjiny would certainly be 
very odd-looking and odd-tempered samples of human- 
kind. The history of some would be commonplace 
enough, but that of many would be very curious A 



186 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

great many readers, I dare say, would like to stand in a 
gallery, and look at the queer individuals assembk'd 
below. Magazine articles, of course, are not (speaking 
generally) specimens of the highest order of literature 
but still, some experience, some thought, some observa- 
tion, have gone to produce even them. And it is un- 
cjuestionably out of deep sorrow, out of the travail of 
heart and nature, that the finest and noblest of all human 
thoughts have come. 

As for the ordinary task-work of life, it must, beyond 
all question, be generally done by screws, — that is, by 
folk whose mental organization is unsound on some point. 
Vain people, obstinate people, silly people, evil-fore- 
boding people, touchy people, twaddling people, carry on 
the work-day world. Not that it would be giving a fair 
account of them to describe them thus, and leave the 
impression that such are their essential characteristics. 
They are all that has been said ; but there is in most a 
good substratum of practical sense ; and they do fairly, or 
even remarkably well, the particular thing which it is 
their business in this life to do. When Mr. Carlyle said 
that the population of Britain consists of so many mill- 
ions, 'mostly fools,' he conveys a quite wrong impression. 
No doubt there are some who are silly out and out, who 
are always fools, and essentially fools. No doubt almost 
all, if you questioned them on great matters of which 
they have hardly tho'iight, would express very foolish 
and absurd opinions. But then these absurd opinions 
are not the staple production of their minds. These are 
not a fair sample of their ordinary thoughts. Their ordi- 
nary thoughts are, in the main, sensible and reasonable, 
no doubt. Once upon a time, while a famous criminal 
trm wa? exciting vast interest, I heard a man in a rail- 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 187 

way-carriage, with looks of vast slyness and of special 
stores of information, tell several others that the judge 
and the counsel on each side had met quietly the evening 
before to arrange what the verdict should be ; and that 
though the trial would go on to its end to delude the 
public, still the whole thing was already settled. Now, 
my first impulse was to regard the man with no small 
interest, and to say to myself. There, unquestionably, is 
a fool. But, on reflection, I felt I was wrong. No doubt 
he talked like a fool on this point. No doubt he expressed 
himself in terms worthy of an asylum for idiots. But 
the man may have been a very shrewd and sensible man 
in matters with which he was accustomed to deal : he 
was a horse-dealer, I believe, and 1 doubt not sharp 
enough at market ; and the idiotic appearance he made 
was the result of his applying his understanding to a mat- 
ter quite beyond his experience and out of his province. 
But a man is not properly to be called a fool, even though 
occasionally he says and does very foolish things, if the 
great preponderance of the things he says and does be 
reasonable. No doubt Mr. Carlyle is right in so far as 
this : that in almost every man there is an element of the 
fool. Almost all have a vein of folly running through 
them, and cropping out at the surface now and then. 
But in most men that is not the characteristic part of 
their nature. There is more of the sensible man than cf 
the fool. 

For the forms of unsoundness in those who are mental 
screws of the commonplace order; they are endless. 
You sometimes meet an intellectual defect like that of 
tJie conscientious blockhead James II., who thought that 
to differ from him in opinion was to doubt his word and 
call him a liar. An unsoundness common to all unedu* 



188 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

cated people is, that they cannot argue any question 
without getting into a rage and roaring at the top of their 
voice. This unsoundness exists in a good many educated 
men too. A peculiar twist of some minds is this — that 
instead of maintaining by argument the thesis they are 
maintaining, which is probably that two and two make 
five, they branch off and begin to adduce arguments 
which do not go to prove that, but to prove that the man 
who maintains that two and two make four is a fool, or 
even a ruffian. Some good men are subject to this in- 
firmity — that if you differ from them on any point what* 
ever, they regard the fact of your differing from them as 
proof, not merely that you are intellectually stupid, but 
that you are morally depraved. Some really good men 
and women cannot let slip an opportunity of saying any- 
thing that may be disagreeable. And this is an evil that 
tends to perpetuate itself; for when Mr. Snarling comes 
and says to you something uncomplimentary of yourself 
or your near relations, instead of your doing what you 
ought to do, and pitying poor Snarling, and recommend- 
ing him some wholesome medicine, you are strongly 
tempted to retort in kind ; and thus you sink yourself to 
Snarling's level, and you carry on the row. Your proper 
course is either to speak kindly to poor Snarling, or not 
to speak to him at all. There is something unsound 
about the man whom you never heard say a good .vord 
of any mortal, '')ut whom you have heard say a great 
many bad words of a great many mortals. There is un- 
soundness verging on entire insanity in the man who is al- 
ways fancying that all about him are constantly plotting to 
thwart his plans and damage his character. There is un- 
soundness in the man who is constantly getting Into furious 
alternations with his fellow passengers in steamers and I'ail- 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 189 

ways, or getting into angry and lengthy correspondence 
witli anybody in the newspapers or otherwise. There is 
unsoundness in the man who is ever telling you amazing 
stories which he fancies prove himself to be the bravest, 
cleverest, swiftest of mankind, but which (on his own show- 
ing) prove him to be a vapouring goose. There is unsound- 
ness in the man or woman who turns green with envy as a 
handsome carriage drives past, and then says with awful 
bitterness that he or she would not enter such a shabby 
old conveyance. There is unsoundness in the mortal 
whose memory is full to repletion of contemptible little 
stories going to prove that all his neighbours are rogues 
or fools. There is unsoundness in the unfortunate per- 
sons who are always bursting into tears and bahooing out 
that nobody loves them. Nobody will, so long as they 
bahjpo. Let them stop bahooing. There is unsoundness 
in the mental organization of the sneaky person who stays 
a few weeks in a family, and sets each member of it 
against all the rest by secretly repeating to each exagger- 
ated and malicious accounts of what has been said as to 
him or her by the others. There is unsoundness in the 
perverse person who resolutely does the opposite of what 
you wish and expect : who won't go the pleasure excur- 
sion you had arranged on his account, or partake of the 
dish which has been cooked for his special eating. There 
is unsoundness in the deluded and unamiable person who, 
by a grim, repellent, Pharisaic demeanour and address 
excites in the minds of young persons gloomy and repul- 
sive ideas of religion, which wiser and better folk find it 
very hard to rub away. ' Will my fother be there ? ' said 
a little Scotch boy to some one who had been telling him 
of the Happiest Place in the universe, and recounting its 
joys. ' Yes/ was the reply. Said the little man, with 



190 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

prompt decision, 'Then I'll no gang!' He must ha\e 
been a wretched screw of a Christian who left that im- 
pression on a young child's heart. There is unsoundness 
in the man who cannot listen to the praises of another 
man's merit without feeling as though this were something 
taken from himself. And it is amusing, though sad, to 
see how such folk take for granted in others the same 
p^tty enviousness which they feel in themselves. They will 
go to one writer, painter, preacher, and begin warmly to 
praise the doings of another man in the same vocation ; 
and when I have seen the man addressed listen to and 
add to the praises with the hearty, self-forgetting sincerity 
of a generous mind, I have witnessed the bitter disap- 
pointment of the petty malignants at the failure of their 
poisoned dart. Generous honesty quite baffles such. If 
their dart ever wounds you, reader, it is because you de- 
serve that it should. There is unsoundness in the kindly, 
loveable man, whose opinions are preposterous, and whose 
conversation that of a jackass. But still, who can help 
loving the man, occasionally to be met, whose heart is 
right and whose talk is twaddle? Let me add, that I 
have met with one or two cases in which conscience was 
quite paralysed, but all the other intellectual faculties 
were right. Surely there is no more deplorable instance 
of the mental screw. You may find the notorious cheat 
who is never out of church, and who fancies himself a 
most creditable man. You will find the malicious tale- 
bearer and liar, who attends all the prayer-meetings 
within her reach, and who thanks God (like an individual 
in former days) that she is so much better than other 
women. 

In the case of commonplace screws, if they do their 
work well, it is for the most part in spite of their being 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 191 

screws. It is because they are sound in the main, in 
those portions of their mental constitution Avhich their 
daily work calls into play ; and because they are seldom 
required to do those things which their unsoundness 
makes them unfit to do. You know, if a horse never fell 
lame except when smartly trotted down a hill four miles 
long, you might say that for practical purposes that horse 
was never lame at all. For the single contingency to 
which its powers are unequal would hardly ever occur. In 
like manner, if the mind of a tradesman is quite equal to 
the management of his business and the respectable train- 
ing of his family, you may say that the tradesman's mind 
js for practical purposes a sound and good one ; although 
if called to consider some important political question, 
such as that of the connexion of Church and Stale, hi> 
judgment might be purely idiotical. You see, he i- 
hardly ever required to put his mind (so to speak) at * 
hill at which it would break down. I have walked a 
mile along the road with a respectable Scotch farmer, 
talking of country matters ; and I have concluded that I 
had hardly ever conversed with a shrewder and more 
sensible man. But having accidentally chanced to speak 
of a certain complicated political question, I found that 
quoad hoc my friend's intellect was that of a baby. I 
had just come upon the four-mile descent which would 
knock up the horse which for ordinary work was sound. 

Yes, reader, in the case of commonplace screws, if 
hey do their work^ well, it is in spite of their being 
screws. But in the case of great geniuses who are 
screws, it is often because of their unsoundness that they 
do tlie fine things they do. It is the hectic beauty which 
his morbid mind cast upon his page, that made Byron 
the attractive and fascinating poet that he is to young 



192 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

and inexperienced minds. Had his views been sounder 
and his feehng healthier, he might have been but a com- 
monplace writer after alh In poetry, and in all imag- 
inative writing, we look for beauty, not for sense ; and 
we all know that what is properly disease and unsound- 
ness sometimes adds to beauty. You know the delicate 
flush, the bright eyes, the long eyelashes, which we often 
see in a young girl on whom consumption is doing its 
work. You know the peachy complexion which often 
goes with undeveloped scrofula. And had Charles Lamb 
not been trembling on the verge of insanity, the Essays 
of Elia would have wanted great part of their strange, 
undefinable charm. Had Ford and Massinger led more 
regular lives and written more reasonable sentiments, 
what a caput mortuum their tragedies would be ! Had 
Coleridge been a man of homely common-sense, he would 
never have written Christahel. I remember in my boy- 
hood reading The Ancient Mariner to a hard-headed 
lawyer of no literary taste. He listened to the poem, 
and merely remarked that its author was a horrible fool. 
There is no doubt that physical unsoundness often is 
a cause of mental excellence. Some of the best women 
on earth are the ugliest. Their ugliness cut them off 
from the enjoyment of the gaieties of life ; they did not 
care to go to a ball-room and sit all the evening without 
once being asked to dance ; and so they learned to devot( 
themselves to better things. You have seen the pretty 
siuter, a frivolous, silly flirt ; the homely sister, quietly 
devoting herself to works of Christian charity. Ugly 
people, we often hear it said, cry up the beauties of the 
mind. It may be added, that ugly people possess a very 
large proportion of those beauties. And a great deal of 
the best intellectual work is done by men who are physi- 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 193 

(Sally screws ; by men who are nearly blind, broken- 
winded, lame, and weakly. We all know what the 
Apostle Paul was physically ; we know too what the 
world owes to that dwarfish, bald, stammering man. X 
never in my life read anything more touching than the 
story of that poor weakly creature, Dr. George Wilson, 
the Professor of Teclmology in the University of Edin- 
burgh. Poor weakly creature, only in a physical sense ; 
what a noble intellectual and moral nature dwelt within 
that slender frame ! You remenaber how admirably he 
did his work, though in a condition of almost ceaseless 
bodily weakness and suffering ; how he used to lecture 
often with a great blister on his chest ; how his lungs 
and his entire system were the very poorest that could 
just retain his soul. I never saw him ; but I have seen 
his portrait. You see the intellectual kindly face ; but 
it is but the weakly shadow of a physical man. But it 
was only physically that George Wilson was a poor type 
of humanity. What noble health and excellence there 
were in that noble mind and heart ! So amiable, so pa- 
tient, so unaffectedly pious, so able and industrious; a 
beautiful example of a great, good, memorable and truly 
loveable man. Let us thank God for George Wilson : 
for his life and his example. Hundreds of poor souls 
ready to sink into morbid despair of ever doing anything 
good, will get fresh hope and heart from his story. It 
is well, indeed, that there have been some in whom the 
physical system equals the moral ; men like Christopher 
North and Sydney Smith, — men in whom the play of 
the lungs was as good as the play of the imagination, and 
whose literal heart was as excellent as their metaphysi- 
cal. We have all seen examples in which the noblest 
intellect and kindebt disposition were happily blended 
13 



194 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

with the stoutest limbs and the pleasantest face. And 
the sound mind in the sound body is doubtless the per- 
fection of the human being. I have walked many miles 
and many hours over the heather, with one of the ablest 
tnen in Britain : a man whom at fourscore his country 
can heartily trust with perhaps the gravest charge which 
any British subject can undertake. And I have wit- 
nessed with great delight the combination of the keenest 
head and best heart, with physical strength and activity 
which quite knock up men younger by forty years. 

When I was reading Dr. Forbes Winslow's book, al- 
ready named, a very painful idea was impressed upon me. 
Dr. Winslow gives us to understand that madness is for 
the most part a condition of most awful suffering. I 
used to think that though there might be dreadful misery 
on the way to madness, yet once reason was fairly over- 
thrown, the suffering was over. This appears not to be 
so. All the miserable depression of spirits, all the inca- 
pacity to banish distressing fears and suspicions, which 
paved the way to real insanity, exist in even intensified 
degree when insanity has actually been reached. The 
poor maniac fancies he is surrounded by burning fires, 
that he is encircled by writhing snakes, that he is in hell, 
tormented by devils ; and we must remember that the 
misery caused by firmly believing a thing which does not 
:;xist, is precisely the same as that which would be occa- 
sioned to a sane person if the things imagined were facts. 
It seems, too, that many insane people are quite aware 
that they are insane, which of course aggravates what 
they have to endure. It must be a dreadful thing when 
the mind passes the point up to which it is still useful 
and serviceable, though unsound, and enters upon the 
etage of recognized insanity. It must be dreadful to 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 195 

feel that you are not quite yourself; that something is 
wrong ; that you cannot discard suspicions and fears 
which still you are aware are foolish and groundless. This 
IS a melancholy stage, and if it last long a very perilous 
one. Great anxiety, if continued for any length of time, 
is almost certain to lead to some measure of insanity. 
The man who night and day is never free from the 
thought of how he is to pay his way, to maintain his 
children, is going mad. It is thoroughly evil when one 
single thought comes to take entire possession of the mind. 
It shows the brain is going. It is no wonder, my friendly 
reader, that so many men are mentally screws ! There 
is something perfectly awful in reading what are the pre- 
monitory symptoms of true insanity. Read this, my friend, 
and be afraid of yourself. Here are what Dr. Winslow 
says indicates that insanity is drawing near. Have you 
never seen it ? Have you never felt it ? 

The patient is irritable, and fractious, peevish, and pettish. He is 
morbidly anxious about trifles : slight ruflles on the surface, and triv- 
ial annoyances in the family circle or during the course of business, 
worry, flurry, tease and fret him, nothing satisfying or soothing his 
mind, and everything, to his distempered fancy, going wrong within 
the sacred precincts of domestic life. He is quick at fancying affronts, 
and greatly exaggerates the slightest and most trifling acts of supposed 
inattention. The least irregularity on the part of the domestics ex- 
cites, angers, and vexes him. He is suspicious of and quarrels with 
his nearest relations, and mistrusts his best, kindest, and most faithful 
friends. While in this premonitory stage of mental derangement, bor- 
dering closely on an attack of acute insanity, he twists, distorts, mis- 
conceives, misconstrues, and perverts in a most singular manner every 
look, gesture, action, and word of those closely associated, and nearly 
related to him. 

Considering that Dr. Winslow does really in that par- 
agraph sketch the moral characteristics of at least a score 
ol' people known to every one of us, all this is alarming 



196 CONCEKNING SCREWS. 

enough. And considering, too, how common a thing 
sleeplessness is among men who go through hard mental 
work, or who are pi-essed by many cares and anxieties, 
it is even more alarming to read, that — 

Wakefulness is one of the most constant concomitants of some types 
cf incipient brain disease, and in many cases a certain forerunner of 
insanity. It is an admitted axiom in medicine, that the brain cannot 
be in a healthy condition while a state of sleeplessness exists. 

But I pass away from this part of my subject. J 
do not believe that it is good for either my readers or 
myself to look from a medical point of view at those de- 
fects or morbid manifestations in our mental organization 
which stamp us screws. We accept the fact, generally ; 
without going into details. It is a bad thing for a man 
to be always feeling his pulse after every little exertion, 
and fancying that its acceleration or irregulanty indicates 
that something is wrong. Such a man is i^ the fair way 
to settled hypochondria. And I think it 7*8 even worse to 
be always watching closely the play cf the mental ma- 
chine, and thinking that this process cv that emotion is not 
as it ought to be. Let a man wo^-k h^s mind fairly and 
moderately, and not worry hiipsplf as to its state. The 
mind can get no more morbM habit than that of contin- 
ually watching itself for «\ stumble. Except in the case 
of metaphysicians, who'^e business it is to watch and an 
alyse the doings of tjie mind, the mind ought to be like 
the stomach. You know that your stomach is right, be- 
cause you never feel that you have one ; but the work 
intended for that organ is somehow done. And common 
folk should know that they have minds, only by finding 
the ends fairly attained, which are intended to be attained 
by that most sensitive and ticklish piece of machinery. 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 197 

I think that it is a piece of practical wisdom in driving 
the mental screw, to be careful how you allow it to dwell 
too constantly upon any one topic. If you allow yourself 
to think too much of any subject, you will get a partial 
craze upon that ; you will come to vastly overrate its 
importance. You will make yourself uncomfortable about 
it There once was a man who mused long upon the no- 
torious fact that almost all human beings stoop consider 
ably. Few hold themselves as upright as they ought. 
And this notion took such hold upon the poor man's mind, 
that, waking or sleeping, he could not get rid of it ; and 
he published volume after volume to prove the vast ex- 
tent of the evils which come of this bad habit of stooping, 
and to show that to get fairly rid of this bad habit would 
be the regeneration of the human race, physically and 
morally. We know how authors exaggerate the claims 
of their subject ; and I can quite imagine a very earnest 
man feeling afraid to think too much and long about any 
existing evil, for fear it should greaten on his view into 
a thing so large and pernicious, that he should be con- 
strained to give all his life to wrestling with that one thing, 
and attach to it an importance which would make his 
neighbours think him a monomaniac. If you think long 
and deeply upon any subject, it grows in apparent mag- 
nitude and weight ; if you think of it too long, it may 
grow big enough to exclude the thought of all things be- 
sides. If it be an existing and prevalent evil you are 
thinking of, you may come to fancy that if that one thing 
were done away, it vvould be well with the human race : 
all evil would go with it. I can conceive the process by 
which, without mania, without anything worse than the 
workable unsoundness of the practically sound mind, one 
might come to think as the man who wrote against stoop- 



198 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

ing thought. For myself, I feel the force of this law so 
deeply, that there are certain evils of which I am afraid to 
think much, for fear I should come to be able to think of 
nothing else and nothing more. I remember, when I was. 
a boy, there was a man in London who constantly ad- 
vertised himself in the newspapers as the Inventor of the 
only Rational System of WritiJig in the Universe. Hi 
system was, I believe, to move in writing, not the fingers 
merely, but the entire arm from the shoulder. This may 
be an improvement perhaps : and that man had brooded 
over the mischiefs of moving the fingers in writing till 
these mischiefs shut out the view of the rest of creation, 
or at least till he saw nothing but irrationality in writing' 
otherwise. All the millions who wrote by the fingers were 
cracked. The writing-master, in short, though possibly a 
reasonable man on other subjects, was certainly unsound 
upon this. You may allow yourself to speculate on the 
chance of being bitten by a mad dog, or of being maimed 
by a railway accident, till you grow morbid on these 
points. If you live in the country, you may give in to 
the idea that your house will be broken into at night by 
burglars, till, every time you wake in the dark hours, you 
may fancy you hear the centre-bit at work boring through 
the window-shutters down stairs. A very clever woman 
once told me, that for a year she yielded so much to tha 
fear that she had left a spark behind her in any room into 
which sh3 had gone with a lighted candle, which spark 
would set the house on fire, that she could not be easy 
till she had groped her way back in the dark to see that 
things were right. Now, ye readers whose minds must 
be carefully driven (I mean all the readers who will ever 
Bee this page), don't give in to these fancies. As you 
would carefully train your horse to pass the comer he 



CONCEKNING SCREWS. 199 

always shies at, so break your mind of this bad habit. 
And in breaking your mind of the smallest bad habit, I 
would counsel you to resort to the same kindly Helper 
whose aid you would ask in breaking your mind of the 
greatest and worst. It is not a small matter, the exist- 
ence in the mind of any tendency or characteristic which 
is unsound. We know what lies in that direction. You 
are like the railway-train which, with breaks unapplied, 
is stealing the first yard down the incline at the rate of a 
mile in two hours ; but if that train be not pulled up, in 
ten minutes it may be tearing down to destruction at 
sixty miles an hour. 

I have said that almost every human being is mentally 
a screw ; that all have some intellectual peculiarity, some 
moral twist, away from the normal standard of rightness. 
Let it be added, that it is little wonder that the fact 
should be as it is. I do not think merely of a certain 
unhappy warping, of an old original wrench, which hu- 
man nature long ago received, and from which it never 
has recovered. I am not writing as a theologian ; and 
so I do not suggest the grave consideration that human 
nature, being fallen, need not be expected to be the right- 
working machinery that it may have been before it fell. 
But I may at least say, look how most people are edu- 
cated ; consider the kind of training they get, and the 
incompetent hands that train them : what chance have 
they of being anything but screws ? Ah, my reader, if 
horses were broken by people as unfit for their work as 
most of the people who form human minds, there would 
not be a horse in the world that would not be dead lame. 
You do not trust your thorough-bred colt, hitherto un- 
handled, to any one who is not understood to have a 
thorough knowledge of the characteristics and education 



200 . CONCERNING SCREWS. 

of horses. But in numberless instances, even in the bet* 
ter classes of society, a thing which needs to be guarded 
against a thousand wrong tendencies, and trained up to 
a thousand right things from which it is ready to shrink, 
the most sensitive and complicated thing in nature, the 
human soul, is left to have its character formed by hands 
IS hopelessly unfit for the task as the Lord Chancellor 
Is to prepare the winner of the next St. Leger. You 
find parents and guardians of children systematically fol- 
lowing a course of treatment calculated to bring out the 
very worst tendencies of mind and heart that are latent 
in the little things given to their care. If a young horse 
has a tendency to shy, how carefully the trainer seeks to 
win him away from the habit. But if a poor little boy 
has a hasty temper, you may find his mother taking the 
greatest pains to irritate that temper. If the little fel- 
low have some physical or mental defect, you have seen 
parents who never miss an opportunity of throwing it in 
the boy's face ; parents who seem to exult in the thought 
that they know the place where a touch will always 
cause to wince, — the sensitive, unprotected point where 
the dart of malignity will never fail to get home. If a 
child has said or done some wrong or foolish thing, you 
will find parents who are constantly raking up the re- 
membrance of it, for the pure pleasure of giving pain. 
Even so would a kindly man, who knows that his horse 
has just come down and cut himself, take pains when- 
ever he came to a bit of road freshly macadamized to 
bring down the poor horse on the sharp stones again 
with his bleeding knees. And even where you do not 
find positive malignity in those entrusted with the train- 
ing of human minds, you find hopeless incompetency ex- 
hibited in many other ways ; outrageous silliness an? 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 201 

vanity, want of honesty, and utter want of sense. I say 
it deliberately, instead of wondering that most minds are 
such screws, I wonder with indescribable surprise that 
they are not a thousand times worse. For they are like 
trees pruned and trained into ugliness and barrenness. 
They are like horses carefully tutored to shy, kick, rear, 
and bite. It says something hopeful as to what may 
yet be made of human beings, that most of them are no 
worse than they are. Some parents, fancying too that 
they are educating their children on Christian principles, 
educate them in such fashion that the only wonder is 
that the children do not end at the gallows. 

Let us recognise the fact in all our treatment of others, 
that we have to deal with screws. Let us not think, as 
some do, that by ignoring a fact you make it cease to be 
a fact. I have seen a man pulling his lame horse up 
tight, and flicking it with his whip, and trying to drive 
it as if it were not lame. Now, that won't do. The poor 
horse makes a desperate effort, and runs a step or two 
as if sound. But in a little the heavy head falls upon 
the bit at each step, and perhaps the creature comes 
down bodily with a tremendous smash. If it were only 
his idiotic master that was smashed, I should not mind. 
So have I seen parents refusing to see or allow for the 
peculiarities of their children, insisting on driving the 
poor screw as though it were perfect in wind and limb. 
So have I seen people refusing to see or allow for the pe- 
culiarities of those around them ; ignoring the depressed 
spirits, the unhappy twist, the luckless perversity of tem- 
per, in a servant, an acquaintance, a friend, which, rightly 
managed, would still leave them most serviceable screws ; 
but whidi, determinedly ignored, will land in uselessnesa 



202 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

and misery. I believe there are people who (in a moral 
sense), if they have a crooked stick, fancy that by using 
it as if it were straight, it will become straight. If you 
have got a rifle that sends its ball somewhat to the left 
side, you (if you are not a fool) allow for that in shoot- 
ing. If you have a friend of sterling value, but of 
crotchety temper, you (if you are not a fool) allow for 
that. If you have a child who is weak, desponding, and 
iiavly old, you (if you are not a hopeless idiot) remember 
that, and allow for it, and try to make the best of it. 
But if you be an idiot, you will think it deep diplomacy, 
and adamantine firmness, and wisdom beyond Solomon's, 
to shut your eyes to the state of facts ; to tug sharply the 
poor screw's mouth, to lash him violently, to drive him 
as though he were sound. Probably you will come to a 
smash : alas ! that the smash will probably include more 
than you. 

Not, reader, that all human beings thus idiotically 
ignore the fact that it is with screws they have to deal. 
It is very touching to see, as we sometimes see, people 
trying to make the best of awful screws. You are quite 
pleased if your lame horse trots four or five miles with- 
out showing very gross unsoundness, though of course 
this is but a poor achievement. And even so, I have 
been touched to see the child quite happy at having 
coaxed a graceless father to come for once to church ; 
and the wife quite happy when the blackguard bully, 
her husband, for once evinces a little kindness. It was 
not much they did, you see : but remember what wretch • 
ed screws did it, and be thankful if they do even that lit- 
tle. I have heard a mother repeat, with a pathetic pride, 
a connected sentence said by her idiot boy. You remem- 
ber how delighted Miss Trotwood was, in Mr. Dickens's 



CONCERNING SCREWS 203 

beautiful story, with Mr. Dick's good sense, when he said 
something which in anybody else would have been rather 
silly. But Mr. Dick, you see, was just out of the Asy- 
lum, and no more. How pleased you are to find a rela- 
tion, who is a terrific fool, merely behaving like anybody 
else ! 

Yes : there is a good deal of practical resignation in 
this world. We get reconciled to having and to being 
screws. We grow reconciled to the fact that our posses- 
sions, our relations, our friends, are very far indeed from- 
being what we could wish. We grow reconciled to the 
fact, and we try to make the best of it, that we ourselves 
are screws : that in temper, in judgment, in talent, in 
tact, we are a thousand miles short of being what we 
ought ; and that we can hope for little more than decently, 
quietly, sometimes wearily and sadly, to plod along the 
path in life which God in his kindness and' wisdom has 
set us. We come to look with interest, but without a 
vestige of envy, at those who are cleverer and better off 
than ourselves. A great many good people are so ac- 
customed to things going against them, that they are 
rather startled when things go as they could have de- 
sired : they can stand disappointment, but success puts 
them out, it is so unwonted a thing. The lame horse, 
the battered old gig, — they feel at home with these ; 
but they would be confused if presented with my friend 
Smith's drag, with its beautiful steeds, all but thorough- 
bred, and perfectly sound. To struggle on with a small 
income, manifold worries, and lowly estimation, — to 
these things they have quietly reconciled themselves. 
But give them wealth, and peace, and fame (if these 
things can be combined), and they would hardly know 



204 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

what to do. Yesterday I walked up a very long flight 
of steps in a very poor part of the most beautiful city in 
Britain. Just before me, a feeble old woman, bent down 
apparently by eighty years, was slowly ascending. She 
had a very large bundle on her back, and she supported 
herself by a short stick in her withered, trembling hand. 
If it had been in the country, I should most assuredly 
have carried up the poor creature's bundle for her ; but I 
am sorry to say I had not moral courage to offer to do so 
in town : for a parson with a great sackcloth bundle on hia 
back, would be greeted in that district with depreciatory 
observations. But I kept close by her, to help her if 
she fell ; and when I got to the top of the steps I passed 
her and went on. I looked sharply at the poor old face 
in passing ; I see it yet. I see the look of cowed, pa- 
tient, quiet, hopeless submission : I saw she had quite 
reconciled her mind to bearing her heavy burden, and to 
the far heavier load of years, and infirmities, and poverty, 
she was bearing too. She had accepted those for her 
portion in this life. She looked for nothing better. She 
was like the man whose horse has been broken-winded 
and lame so long, that he has come almost to think that 
every horse is a screw. I see yet the quiet, wearied, 
surprised look she cast up at me as I passed : a look 
merely of surprise to see an entire coat in a place where 
my fellow-creatures (every one deserving as much as me) 
for the most part wear rags. I do not think she even 
wished to possess an equally entire garment: she looked 
at it with interest merely as the possession of some one 
else. She did not even herself (as we Scotch say) to 
anything better than the rags she had worn so long. 
Long experience had subdued her to what she is. 

But short experience does so too. We early learn to 



CONCERNING SCREWS. 205 

be content with screws, and to make the best of imper- 
fect means. As I have been writing that last paragraph, 
I have been listening to a colloquy outside my study 
door, which is partly open. The parties engaged in the 
discussion were a certain little girl of five years old, and 
her nurse. The little girl is going out to spend the day 
at the house of a little companion ; and she is going to 
take her doll with her. I heard various sentences not 
quite distinctly, which conveyed to me a general impres- 
sion of perplexity ; and at length, in a cheerful, decided 
voice, the little girl said, ' The 'people will never know it 
has got no legs 1 ' The doll, you see, was unsound. Ac- 
cidents had brought it to an imperfect state. But that 
wise little girl had done what you and I, my reader, must 
try to do very frequently : she had made up her mind to 
make the best of a screw. 

I learn a lesson, as I close my essay, from the old 
woman of eighty, and the little girl of five. Let us seek 
to reconcile our minds both to possessing screws, and 
(harder still) to being screws. Let us make the best of 
our imperfect possessions, and of our imperfect selves. 
Let us remember that a great deal of good can be done 
by means which fall very far short of perfection ; that 
our moderate abilities, honestly and wisely husbanded 
and directed, may serve valuable ends in this world be- 
fore we quit it, — ends which may remain after we are 
gone. I do not suppose that judicious critics, in pointing 
out an author's faults, mean that he ought to stop writing 
altogether. There are hopeless cases in which he cer- 
tainly ought : cases in which the steed passes being a 
Bcrew, and is fit only for the hounds. But in most in- 
stances the critic would be quite wrong, if he argued 
.hat because his author has many flaw's and defects, he 



206 CONCERNING SCREWS. 

should write do more. "With all its errors, whtit lie 
writes may be much better than nothing ; as the service- 
able screw is better than no horse at all. And if the 
critic's purpose is merely to show the author that the 
author is a screw, — ■ why, if the author have any sense 
at all, he knows that already. He does not claim to be 
wiser than other men ; and still less to be better : yet he 
may try to do his best. With many defects and errors, 
still fair work may be turned off. I will not forget the 
lame horses that took the coach so well to Inverary, 
And I remember certain words in which one who is all 
but the greatest English poet declared that under the 
heavy visitation of God he would do his utmost still. 
Here is the resolution of a noble screw ; — 

I argue not 
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 
Bight onward ! 




CHAPTER VII. 
CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

ET me look back, this New Year's time, 
over nine years. Let me try to revive 
again tlie pervading atmosphere of the days 
when I used to live entirely alone. AU 
days crush up into very little in the perspective. The 
months and years which were long as they passed over, 
are but a hand-breadth in remembrance. Five or ten 
years may be packed away into a very little corner in 
your mind ; and in the case of a man brought up from 
childhood in a large family, who spends no more than 
three or four years alone before he again sees a house- 
hold beginning to surround him, I think those lonely 
years seem especially short in the retrospect. Yet pos- 
sibly in these he may have done some of the best work 
of his life ; and possibly none, of all the years he has 
seen, have produced so great an impression on his char- 
acter and on his temperament. And the impression left 
may be most diverse in nature. I have known a man 
remarkably gentle, kind, and sympathetic ; always anx- 
ious to say a pleasant and encouraging word ; discerning 
by a wonderful intuition whenever he had presented a 
view or made a remark that had caused pain to the most 



208 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

sensitive, and eager to efface the painful feeling ; and I 
Lave thought that in all this I could trace the result of 
his having lived entirely alone for many years. I have 
known a man insufferably arrogant, conceited, and self- 
opinionated ; another morbidly suspicious and ever ner- 
vously anxious ; another conspicuously devoid of common 
sense ; and in each of these I have thought I could trace 
the result of a lonely life. But indeed it depends so 
entirely on the nature of the material subjected to the 
mill what the result turned off shall be, that it is hard 
to say of any human being what shall be the effect pro- 
duced upon his character by almost any discipline you 
can think of. And a solitary life may make a man 
either thoughtful or vacant, either humble or conceited, 
either sympathetic or selfish, either frank or shrinkingly 
shy. 

Great numbers of educated people in this country live 
solitary lives. And by a solitary life I do not mean a 
life in a remote district of country with hardly a neigh- 
bour near, but with your house well filled and noisy witli 
children's voices. By a solitary life I mean a life in 
which, day after day and week after week, you rise in 
the morning in a silent dwelling, in which, save servants, 
there are none but yourself; in which you sit down to 
breakfast by yourself, perhaps set yourself to your day's 
work all alone, then dine by yourself, and spend the 
evening by yourself. Barristers living in chambers in 
some cases do this ; young lads living in lodgings, young 
clergymen in country parsonages, old bachelors in hand- 
some town houses and beautiful country mansions, old 
maids in quiet streets of country towns, old ladies once 
the centre of cheerful famiUes, but whose husband and 
children are gone — even dukes in palaces and castles, 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 209 

amid a lonely splendour which must, one would think, 
seem dreary and ghastly. But you know, my reader, 
we sympathize the most completely with that which we 
have ourselves experienced. And when I hear people 
talk of a solitary hfe, the picture called up before me is 
that of a young man who has always lived as one of a 
household considerable in numbers, who gets a living in 
the Church, and who, having no sister to keep house for 
him, goes to it to live quite alone. How many of my 
fi lends have done precisely that! "Was it not a curious 
mode of life ? A thing is not made commonplace to 
your own feeling by the fact that hundreds or thousands 
of human beings have experienced the very same. And 
although fifty Smiths have done it (all very clever fel- 
lows), and fifty Robinsons have done it (all very com- 
monplace and ordinary fellows), one does not feel a bit 
the less interest in recurring to that experience which, 
hackneyed as it may be, is to you of greater interest 
than all other experience, in that it is your own. Draw 
up a thousand men in a row, all dressed in the same 
dark-green uniform of the riflemen ; and I do not think 
that their number, or their likeness to one another, will 
cause any but the most unthinking to forget that each 
is an individual man as much as if he stood alone iu 
the desert ; that each has his own ties, cares, and charac- 
ter, and that possibly each, like to all the rest as he may 
appear to others, is to several hearts, or perhaps to one 
only, the one man of all mankind. 

Most clergymen whom I have known divide their day 
very much in the same fashion. After breakfast they 
go into their study and write their sermon for two or 
three hours ; then they go out and visit their sick or 
make other calls of duty for several hours. If they have 
U 



210 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

a large parish, they probably came to it with the resolu- 
tion that before dinner they should always have an 
hour's smart walk at least ; but they soon find that duty 
encroaches on that hour, and finally eats it entirely up, 
and their duty calls are continued till it is time to return 
home to dinner. Don't you remember, my friend, how 
short a time that lonely meal lasted, and how very far 
from jovial the feast was ? As for me, that I might rest 
my eyes from reading between dinner and tea (a thing 
much to be desired in the case of every scholar), I hard- 
ly ever failed, save for a few weeks of midwinter, to go 
out in the twilight and have a walk — a solitary and 
very slow walk. My hours, you see, were highly un- 
fashionable. I walked from half-past five to half-past six : 
that was my after-dinner walk. It was always the same. 
It looks somewhat dismal to recall. Do you ever find, 
in looking back at some great trial or mortification you 
ha\e passed through, that you are pitying yourself as if 
you were arH)ther person ? I do not mean to say that 
those walks were a trial. On the contrary, they were 
always an enjoyment — a subdued quiet enjoyment, as 
are the enjoyments of solitary folk. Still, now looking 
back, it seems to me as if I were watching some one else 
going out in the cold February twilight, and walking 
from half-past five to half-past six. I think I see a hu- 
man being, wearing a very thick and rough great-coat, 
got for these walks, and never worn on any other occa- 
sion, walking very slowly, bearing an extremely thick 
oak walking-stick (I have it yet) by the shore of the 
bleak gray sea. Only on the beach did I ever bear that 
stick ; and by many touches of the sand it gradually 
wore down till it became too short for use. I see the 
human being issuing from the door of a little parsonage 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 211 

(not the one where there are magnificent beeches and 
rich evergreens and climbing roses), and always waiting 
at the door for him there was a friendly dog, a terrier, 
with very short l«gs and a very long back, and shaggy to 
that degree that at a cursory glance it was difficult to 
decide which was his head and which his tail. Ah, poor 
old dog, you are grown very stifi* and lazy now, and 
time has not mellowed your temper. Even then it was 
somewhat doubtful. Not that you ever offered to bite 
me ; but it was most unlucky, and it looked most invidi- 
ous, that occasion when you rushed out of the gate and 
severely tore the garments of the dissenting minister ! 
But he was a worthy man : and I trust that he never sup- 
posed that upon that day you acted by my instigation. 
You were very active then ; and so few faces did you see 
(though a considerable town was within a few hundred 
yards), that the appearance of one made you rush about 
and bark tremendously. Cross a field, pass through a 
hedgerow of very scrubby and stunted trees, cross a 
railway by a path on the level, go on by a dirty track 
on its further side ; and you come upon the sea-shore. 
It is a level, sandy beach ; and for a mile or two inland 
the ground is level, and the soil ungenial. There are 
sandy downs, thinly covered with coarse grass. Trees 
will hardly grow ; the few trees there are, are cut down 
by the salt winds from the Atlantic. The land view, in 
a raw twilight of early spring, is dreary beyond descrip- 
tion ; but looking across the sea, there is a magnificent 
view of mountain peaks. And if you turn in another 
direction, and look along the shore, you will see a fine 
hill rising from the sea and running inland, at whose 
base there flows a beautiful river, which pilgrims como 
hundreds of miles to visit. How often, O sandy beach, 



212 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

have these feet walked slowly along you ! And in these 
years of such walks, I did not meet or see in all six hu- 
man beings. A good many years have passed since I 
saw that dismal beach last ; I dare say it would look very 
strange now. The only excitement of those walks con- 
sisted in sending the dog into the sea, and in making 
him run after stones. How tremendously he ran ; what 
tiger-like bounds he made, as he overtook the missile I 
Just such walks, my friends, many of you have taken. 
Homines estis. And then you have walked into your 
dwelling again, walked into your study, had tea in soli- 
tude, spent the evening alone in reading and writing. 
You have got on in life, let it be hoped ; but you re- 
member well the aspect and arrangement of the room ; 
you remember where stood tables, chairs, candles ; you 
remember the pattern of the grate, often vacantly studied. 
I thinK every one must look back with great interest 
upon such days. Life was in great measure before you, 
what you might do with it. For anything you knew 
then, you might be a great genius ; whereas if the world, 
even ten years later, has not yet recognized you as a 
great genius, it is all but certain that it never will recog- 
nize you as such at all. And through those long winter 
evenings, often prolonged far into the night, not only did 
you muse on many problems, social, philosophical, and 
religious, but you pictured out, I dare say, your future 
life, and thought of many things which you hoped to do 
and to be. 

A very subdued mood of thought and feeling, I think, 
creeps gradually over a man living such a solitary life. 
I mean a man who has been accustomed to a house with 
many inmates. There is something odd in the look of 
an apartment in which hardly a word is ever spoken. 



CONCER'JING SOLITARY DATS. 21 ^ 

If you speak while by yourself, it is in a very low tone 
and though you may smile, I don't think any sane man 
could often laugh heartily while by himself. Think of 
a life in which, while at home, there is no talking and 
no laughing. Why, one distinctive characteristic of ra- 
tional man is cut off when laughing ceases. Man is the 
only living creature that laughs with the sense of enjoy- 
ment, I have heard, indeed, of the laughing hyena ; 
but my information respecting it is mainly drawn from 
Shakspeare, who was rather a great philosopher and 
poet than a great naturalist. ' I will laugh like a hyen,' 
says that great man ; and as these words are spoken as 
a threat, I apprehend the laughter in question is of an 
unpleasant and unmirthful character. But to return from 
such deep thoughts, let it be repeated, that the entire 
mood of the solitary man is likely to be a sobered and 
subdued one. Even if hopeful and content, he will never 
be in high spirits. The highest degree in the scale he 
will ever reach, may be that of quiet lightheartedne.'^s ; 
and that will come seldom. Jollity, or exhilaration, is 
entirely a social thing. I do not believe that even Syd- 
ney Smith could have got into one of his rollicking veins 
when alone. He enjoyed his own jokes, and laughed at 
them with extraordinary zest ; but he enjoyed them be- 
cause he thought others were enjoying them too. Why, 
you would be terrified that your friend's mind was going 
if before entering his room you heard such a peal of 
merriment from within, as would seem a most natural 
thing were two or three cheerful companions together. 
And gradually that chastened, subdued stage comes, 
in which a man can sit for half an hour before the fire 
as motionless as marble ; even a man who in the society 
of others is in ceaseless movement. It is an odd feeling, 



214 CONCERNrN"G SOLITARY DAYS. 

when you find that you yourself, once the most restless 
of living creatures, have come to this. I dare say Rob* 
inson Crusoe often sat for two or three hours togethei 
in his cave, without stirring hand or foot. The vital 
principle grows weak when isolated. You must have a 
number of embers together to make a warm fire; sep- 
arate them, and they will soon go out and grow cold 
And even so, to have brisk, conscious, vigorous life, 
you must have a number of lives together. They keep 
each other warm. They encourage and support each 
other. I dare say the solitary man, sitting at the close 
of a long evening by his lonely fireside, has sometimes 
felt as though the flame of life had sunk so low that a 
very little thing would be enough to put it out altogether. 
From the motionless limbs, from the unstrung hands, it 
seemed as though vitality had ebbed away, and barely 
kept its home in the feeble heart. At such a time some 
sudden blow, some not very violent shock, would sufllce 
to quench the spark for ever. Reading the accounts in 
the newspapers of the cold, hunger, and misery which 
our poor soldiers suffered in the Crimea, have you not 
thought at such a time that a hundredth part of that 
would have been enough to extinguish you ? Have yoU 
uDt wondered at the tenacity of material life, and at the 
desperate grasp with which even the most wretched 
cling to it ? Is it worth the beggar's while, in the snow- 
storm, to struggle on through the drifting heaps towards 
the town eight miles off, where he may find a morsel of 
food to half-appease his hunger, and a stone stair to sleep 
in during the night ? Have not you thought, in hours 
when you were conscious of that shrinking of life into 
its smallest compass — that retirement of it from the 
confines of its territory, of which we have been thinking 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 215 

»— -that in that beggar's place you would keep up the 
fight no longer, but creep into some quiet corner, and 
there lay yourself down and sleep away into forgetful- 
ness ? I do not say that the feeling is to be approved, 
or that it can in any degree bear being reasoned upon ; 
but I ask such readers as have led solitary lives, whether 
they have not sometimes felt it ? It is but the subdued 
feeling which comes of loneliness carried out to its last 
development. It is the highest degree of that influence 
which manifests itself in slow steps, in subdued tones of 
voice, in motionless musings beside the fire. . 

Another consequence of a lonely life in the case of 
many men. is an extreme sensitiveness to impressions 
from external nature. In the absence of other compan- 
ions of a more energetic character, the scenes amid which 
you live produce an effect on you which they would fail 
to produce if you were surrounded by human friends. It 
is the rule in nature, that the stronger impression makes 
you unconscious of the weaker. If you had charged 
with the Six Hundred, you would not have remarked 
during the charge that one of your sleeves was too tight. 
Perhaps in your boyhood, a companion of a turn at once 
thoughtful and jocular, offered to pull a hair out of your 
head without your feeling it. And this he accomplished, 
by taking hold of the doomed hair, and then giving you 
a knock on the head that brought tears to your eyes. 
For, in the more vivid sensation of that knock you never 
felt the little twitch of the hair as it quitted its hold. 
Yes, the stronger impression makes you unaware of the 
weaker. And the impression produced either upon 
thought or feeling by outward scenes, is so much weaker 
than that produced by the companionship of our kind^ 



216 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

that in the presence of the latter influence, the former 
remains unfelt, even by men upon whom it would tell 
powerfully in the absence of another. And so it is upon 
the lonely man that skies and mountains, woods and 
fields and rivers, tell with their full effect ; it is to him 
that they become a part of life ; it is in him that they 
make the inner shade or sunshine, and originate and 
direct the processes of the intellect. You go out to tako 
a walk with a friend : you get into a conversation that 
interests and engrosses you. And thus engrossed, you 
hardly remark the hedges between which you walk, or 
the soft outline of distant summer hills. After the first 
half-mile, you are proof against the influence of the duU 
December sky, or the still October woods. But when 
you go out for your solitary walk, unless your mind be 
very much preoccupied indeed, your feehng and mood 
are at the will of external nature. And after a few hun- 
dred yards, unless the matter which was in your mind 
at starting be of a very worrying and painful character, 
you begin gradually to take your tone from the sky 
above you, and the ground on which you tread. You 
hear the birds, w^hich, walking with a sympathetic com- 
panion, you would never have noticed. You feel the 
whole spirit of the scene, whether cheerful or gloomy, 
gently pervading you, and sinking into your heart. I 
do not know how far all this, continued through months 
or years of comparative loneliness, may permanently 
affect character ; we can stand a great deal of kneading 
without being lastingly affected, either for better or 
worse ; but there can be no question at all, that in a sol- 
itary life nature rises into a real companion, producing 
upon our present mood a real effect. As more articulate 
and louder voices die away upon our ear, we begin to 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 217 

hear the whisper of trees, the murmur of brooks, the 
song of birds, with a distinctness and a meaning not 
known before. 

The influence of nature on most minds is likely to be a 
healthful one ; still, it is not desirable to allow that influ- 
ence to become too strong. And there is a further influ 
ence which is felt in a solitary life, which ought never to 
be permitted to gain the upper hand. I mean the influ- 
ence of our own mental moods. It is not expedient to 
lead too subjective a life. We look at all things, doubt- 
less, through our own atmosphere ; our eyes, to a great 
extent, make the world they see. And no doubt, too, it 
is the sunshine within the breast that has most power to 
brighten ; and the thing that can do most to darken is the 
shadow there. Still, it is not fit that these mental moods 
should be permitted to arise mainly through the mind's 
own working. It is not fit that a man should watch his 
mental moods as he marks the weather ; and be always 
chronicling that on such a day and such another he was 
in high or low spirits, he was kindly-disposed or snappish, 
as the case may be. The more stirring influence of in- 
tercourse with others, renders men comparatively heedless 
of the ups and downs of their own feelings ; change of 
scenes and faces, conversation, business engagements, may 
make the day a lively or a depressed one, though they rose 
at morning with a tendency to just the opposite thing. 
But the solitary man is apt to look too much inward ; and 
to attach undue importance to the fancies and emotions 
which arise spontaneously within his own breast ; many 
of them in great measure the result of material causes. 
And as it is not a healthy thing for a man to be always 
feeling his pulse, and fearing that it shows something 
amiss ; it is not a healthy thing to follow the analogous 



218 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

course as regards our immaterial health and development. 
And I cannot but regard those religious biographies 
which we sometimes read, in which worthy people of lit- 
tle strength of character record particularly from day to 
day all the shifting moods and fancies of their minds as 
regards their religious concerns, as calculated to do a great 
deal of mischief. It is founded upon a quite mistaken 
notion of the spirit of true Christianity, that a human 
being should be ever watching the play of his mind, as 
one might watch the rise and fall of the barometer ; and 
recording phases of thought and feeling which it is easy 
to see are in some cases, and in some degree, at least, the 
result of change of temperature, of dyspepsia, of deranged 
circulation of the blood, as though these were the unques- 
tionable effects of spiritual influence, either supernal or 
infernal. Let us try, in the matter of these most solemn 
of all interests, to look more to great truths and facts 
which exist quite independently of the impression they 
may for the time produce upon us ; and less to our own 
fanciful or morbid frames and feelings. 

It cannot be denied that, in some respects, most men 
are better men alone than in the society of their fellows. 
They are kinder-hearted ; more thoughtful ; moi;e pious. 
I have heard a man say that he always acted and felt a 
great deal more under the influence of religious principle 
while living in a house all by himself for weeks and 
months, than he did when the house was filled by a fam- 
ily. Of course this is not saying much for the steadfast- 
ness of a man's Christian principle. It is as much as to 
say that he feels less likely to go wrong when he is not 
tempted to go wrong. It is as though you said in praise 
of a horse, that he never shies when there is nothing to 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 219 

Bhy at. No doubt, when there are no little vexatious real- 
ities to worry you, you will not be worried by them. And 
little vexatious realities are doubtless a trial ot temper 
and of principle. Living alone, your nerves are not 
jarred bj' discordant voices ; you are to a great degree 
free from annoying interruptions ; and if you be of an or- 
derly turn of mind, you are not put about by seeing things 
around you in untidy confusion. You do not find leaves 
torn out of books ; nor carpets strewn with fragments of 
biscuits ; nor mantelpieces getting heaped with accumu- 
lated rubbish. Sawdust, escaped from m^4lmed dolls, is 
never sprinkled upon your table-covers ; nor ink poured 
over your sermons ; nor leaves from these compositions 
cut up for patterns for dolls' dresses. There is an audi- 
ble quiet which pervades the house, which is favourable 
to thought. The first evenings, indeed, which you spent 
alone in it, were almost awful for their stillness ; but that 
sort of nervous feeling soon wears off. And then you 
have no more than the quiet in which the mind's best 
work must h% done, in the case of average men. 

And there can be little doubt, that when you gird up 
the mind, and put it to its utmost stretch, it is best that 
you should be alone. Even when the studious man comes 
to have a wife and children, he finds it needful that he 
should have his chamber to which he may retire when he 
is to grapple with his task of head-work ; and he finds it 
needful, as a general rule, to suffer no one to enter that 
chamber while he is at work. It is not without meaning 
that this solitary chamber is called a studi/ : the word re- 
minds us that hard mental labour must generally be gone 
through when we are alone. Any interruption by others 
breaks the train of thought ; and the broken end may 
never be caudit aojain. You remember how Maturiui 



220 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

Ihe dramatist, when he felt himself getting into the full 
tide of composition, used to stick a wafer on his forehead, 
to signify to any member of his family who might enter 
his room, that he must not on any account be spoken to. 
You remember the significant arrangement of Sir Walter's 
library, or rather study, at Abbotsford ; it contained one 
chair, and no more. Yes, the mind's best work, at the 
rate of writing, must be done alone. At the speed of 
talking, the case is otherwise. The presence of others 
will then stimulate the mind to do its best ; I mean to do 
the best it can do at that rate of speed. Talking with a 
clever man, on a subject which interests you, your mind 
sometimes produces material which is (for you) so good, 
that you are truly surprised at it. And a barrister, ad- 
dressing a judge or a jury, has to do hard mental work, 
to keep all his wits awake, to strain his intellect to the 
top of its bent, in the presence of many ; but, at the rate 
of speed at which he does this, he does it all the better 
for their presence. So with an extempore preacher. 
The eager attention of some hundreds of his fellow-creat- 
ures spurs him on (if he be mentally and physically in 
good trim) to do perhaps the very best he ever does. I 
have heard more than two or three clergymen who preach 
extempore (that is, who trust to the moment for the words 
entirely, for the illustration mainly, and for the thought 
in some degree), declare that they have sometimes felt 
quite astonished at the fluency with which they were able 
to express their thoughts, and at the freshness and fulness 
with which thoughts crowded upon them, while actually 
addressing a great assemblage of people. Of course, such 
extemporaneous speaking is an uncertain thing. It is a 
hit or a miss. A little physical or mental derangement, 
and the extempore speaker gets on lamely enough ; he 



CONCEPwNING SOLITAEY DAYS. 221 

flounders, stammers, perhaps breaks down entirely. But 
still, I hold that though the extempore speaker may think 
and say that his mind often produces extempore the best 
material it ever produces, it is in truth only the best mf- 
terial which it can produce at the rate of speaking : and 
though the freshly manufactured article, warm from the 
mind that makes it, may interest and impress at the mo- 
ment, we all know how loose, wordy, and unsymmetrical 
such a composition always is : and it is unquestionable 
that the very best product of the human soul must be 
turned off, not at the rate of spe.aking, but at the much 
slower rate of writing : yes, and oftentimes of writing with 
many pauses between the sentences, and long musing over 
individual phrases and words. Could Mr. Tennyson have 
spoken off in half-an-hour any one of the Idylls of the 
King ? Could he have said in three minutes any one of 
the sections of In Memoriam ? And I am not thinking of 
the mechanical difficulty of composition in verse : I am 
thinking of the simple product in thought. Could Bacon 
have extemporized at the pace of talking, one of his 
Essays ? Or does not Ben Jonson sum up just those char- 
acteristics which extempore composition (even the best) 
entirely wants, when he tells us of Bacon that 'no man 
ever wrote more neatly, more pressly ; nor suffered less 
emptiness, less idleness, in that he uttered ? ' I take it 
for granted, that the highest human composition is that 
which embodies most thought, experience, and feeling ; 
and that must be produced slowly and alone. 

And if a man's whole heart be in his work, whether it 
be to write a book, or to paint a picture, or to produce a 
poem, he will be content to make his life such as may 
tend to make him do his work best, even though that 
mode of life should not be the pleasantest in itself. He 



222 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

may say to himself, I would rather be a great poet than 
a very cheerful and happy man ; and il* to lead a very 
reth'ed and lonely life be the likeliest discipline to make 
me a great poet, I shall submit to that discipline. You 
must pay a price in labour and self-denial to accomplish 
aoy great end. When Milton resolved to write some 
thing ' which men should not willingly let die,' he knew 
what it would cost him. It was to be ' by labour ana 
intent study, which I take to be my portion in this life/ 
When Mr. Dickens wrote one of his Christmas Books, 
he shut himself up for six weeks to do it; he 'put his 
whole heart into it, and came out again looking as hag- 
gard as a murderer.' There is a substratum of philo- 
sophic truth in Professor Aytoun's brilliant burlesque of 
Firmilian. That gentleman wanted to be a poet. And 
being persuaded that the only way to successfully de- 
scribe tragic and awful feelings was to have actually felt 
them, he got into all kinds of scrapes of set purpose, that 
he might know what were the actual sensations of peo- 
ple in like circumstances. Wishing to know what are 
the emotions of a murderer, he goes and kills somebody. 
He finds, indeed, that feelings sought experimentally 
prove not to be the genuine article : still, you see the 
spirit of the true artist, content to make any sacrifice to 
attain perfection in his art. The highest excellence, in- 
deed, in some one department of human exertion is not 
consistent with decent goodness in all : you dwarf the 
remaining faculties when you develop one to abnormal 
size and strength. Thus have men been great preachers, 
but uncommonly neglectful parents. Thus have men 
been great statesmen, but omitted to pay their trades- 
men's bills. Thus men have been great moral and social 
reformers, whose own lives stood much in need of moral 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 223 

and social reformation. I should judge from a portrait I 
have seen of Mr. Thomas Sayers, the champion of Eng- 
land, that this eminent individual has attended to his 
physical to the neglect of his intellectual development. 
His face appeared deficient in intelligence, though his 
body seemed abundant in muscle. And possibly it is 
better to seek to develop the entire nature — intellectual, 
moral, and physical — than to push one part of it into a 
prominence that stunts and kills the rest. It is better to 
be a complete man than to be essentially a poet, a states- 
man, a prize-fighter. It is better that a tree should be 
fairly grown all round, than that it should send out one 
tremendous branch to the south, and have only rotten 
twigs in every other direction ; better, even though that 
tremendous branch should be the very biggest that ever 
was seen. Such an inordinate growth in a single direc- 
tion is truly morbid. It reminds one of the geese whose 
livers go to foim that regal dainty, the pate de foie gra^. 
By subjecting a goose to a certain manner of Hfe, you 
dwarf its legs, wings, and general muscular development ; 
but you make its liver grow as large as itself. I have 
known human beings who practised on their mental powers 
a precisely analogous discipline. The power of calculat- 
ing in figures, of writing poetry, of chess-playing, of 
preaching sermons, was tremendous ; but all their other 
faculties were like the legs and wings of the fattening 
goose. 

Let us try to be entire human beings, round and com- 
plete ; and if we wish to be so, it is best not to live too 
much alone. The best that is in man's nature taken as 
a whole is brought out by the society of his kind. In 
one or two respects he may be better in solitude, but not 
as the complete man. And more especially a good deal 



224 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

of the society of little children is much to be desired. 
You will be the better for having them about you, for 
listening to their stories, and watching their ways. They 
will sometimes interrupt you at your work, indeed, but 
their effect upon your moral development will be more 
valuable by a great deal than the pages you might have 
written in the time you spent with them. Read over 
the following verses, which are among the latest written 
by Longfellow. I do not expect that men who have no 
children of their own will appreciate them duly ; but 
they seem to me among the most pleasing and touching 
which that pleasing poet ever wrote. Miserable solitary 
beings, see what improving and softening influences you 
miss! 

Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 

Comes a pause in the day's occupations 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

I hear in the chamber above me 

The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened, 

And voices soft and sweet. 

From my study I see in the lamplight. 

Descending the broad hall-stair, 
Grave Alice, and laughing AUegra, 

And Edith with golden hair. 

A whisper, and then a silence : 

Yet I know by their merry eyes 
They are plotting and planning together 

To take me by surprise. 

A sudden rush from the stairway, 

A sudden raid from the hall ! 
By three doors left unguarded 

They enter my castle wall I 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 225 

They climb up into my turret, 

O'er the arms and back of my chair; 

If I try to escape, they surround me; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses, 

Their arms about me entwine, 
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen. 

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine ! 

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti. 

Because you have scaled the wall. 
Such an old moustache as I am 

Is not a match for you all ? 

I have you fast in my fortress, 

And will not let you depart, 
But put you down into the dungeons. 

In the round-tower of my heart. 

And there will I keep you forever, 

Yes, forever and a day, 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin. 

And moulder in dust away ! 

What shall be said as to the effect which a sohtary 
life will produce upon a man's estimate of himself? 
Shall it lead him to fancy himself a man of very great 
importance ? Or shall it tend to make him underrate 
himself, and allow inferior men of superior impudence 
to take the wall of him? Possibly we have all seen 
each effect follow from a too lonely mode of life. Each 
may follow naturally enough. Perhaps it is natural to 
imagine your mental stature to be higher than it is, when 
you have no one near with whom you may compare your- 
self. It no doubt tends to take down a human being 
from his self-conceit, to find himself no more than one 
of a large circle, no member of which is disposed to pay 
any special regard to his judgment, or in any way to 

15 



226 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

yield him precedence. And the young man who has 
come in his solitary dwelling to think that he is no or- 
dinary mortal, has that nonsense taken out of him when 
he goes back to spend some days in his father's house 
among a lot of brothers of nearly his own age, who are 
generally the very last of the race to believe in any man. 
But sometimes the opposite effect comes of the lonely 
life. You grow anxious, nervous, and timid ; you lose 
confidence in yourself, in the absence of any who may 
back up your failing sense of your own importance. You 
would like to shrink into a corner, and to slip quietly 
through life unnoticed. And all this without affectation, 
without the least latent feeling that perhaps you are not 
so very insignificant after all. Yet, even where men 
have come well to understand how infinitely little they 
are as regards the estimation of mankind, you will find 
them, if they live alone, cherishing some vain fancy that 
some few people, some distant friends, are sometimes 
thinkinsj of them. You will find them arrangino; their 
papers, as though fancying that surely somebody would 
like some day to see them ; and marshalling their ser- 
mons, as though in the vague notion that at some future 
time mortals would be found weak enough to read them. 
It is one of the things slowly learnt by repeated lessons 
and lengthening experience, that nobody minds very 
much about you, my reader. You remember the sensi- 
tive test which Dr. Johnson suggested as to the depth of 
one mortal's feeling for another. How does it affect his 
appetite? Multitudes in London, he said, professed 
themselves extremely distressed at the hanging of Dr. 
Dodd ; but how many on the morning he was hung took a 
materially worse breakfast than usual ? Solitary dreamer, 
fancying that your distant friends feel deep interest in 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 227 

your goings-on, how many of them are there who would 
abridge their dinner if the black-edged note ari'ived by 
post which will some day chronicle the last fact in your 
w orldly history ? 

You get, living alone, into little particular ways of 
your own. You know how, walking along a crowded 
street, you cannot keep a straight line : at every step you 
have to yield a little to right or left to avoid the passers 
by. This is no great trouble : you do it almost uncon- 
sciously, and your journey is not appreciably lengthened. 
Even so, living in a family, walking along the path of 
life in the same track with many more, you find it need- 
ful scores of times each day to give up your own fancies 
and wishes and ways, in deference to those of others. 
You cannot divide the day in that precise fashion which 
you would yourself like best. You must, in deciding 
what shall be the dinner-hour, regard what will suit 
others as well as you. You cannot sit always just in 
the corner or in the chair you would prefer. Some- 
times you must tell your children a story when you are 
weary, or busy ; but you cannot find it in your heart to 
cast a shadow of disappointment on the eager little faces 
that come and ask you. You have to stop writing many 
a time, in the middle of a sentence, to open your study 
door at the request of a little voice outside ; and to admit 
a little visitor who can give no more definite reason for 
her visit than that she has come to see you, and tell you 
she has been a good girl. And all this is well for you 
It breaks in hour by hour upon your native selfishness. 
And it costs you not the slightest effort to give up your 
own wish to that of your child. Even if to middle age 
you retain the innocent taste for sweetmeats, would you 



228 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

not have infinitely greater pleasure in seeing your little 
boy or girl eating up the contents of your parcel, than in 
eating them yourself? It is to me a thoroughly disgust- 
ing sight to see, as we sometimes do, the wife and chil- 
dren of a family kept in constant terror of the selfish 
bashaw at the head of the house, and ever on the watch 
to yield in every petty matter to his whims and fancies. 
Sometimes, where he is a hard-wrought and anxious 
man, whose hard work earns his children's bread, and 
whose life is their sole stay, it is needful that he should 
be deferred to in many things, lest the overtasked brain 
and overstrained nervous system should break down or 
grow unequal to their task. But I am not thinking of 
such cases. I mean cases in which the head of the fam- 
ily is a great fat, bullying, selfish scoundrel ; who devours 
sullenly the choice dishes at dinner, and walks into all 
the fruit at dessert, while his wife looks on in silence, 
and the awe-stricken children dare not hint that they 
would like a little of what the brutal hound is devouring,, 
I mean cases in which the contemptible dog is extremely 
well dressed, while his wife and children's attire is thin 
and bare ; in which he liberally tosses about his money 
in the billiard-room, and goes off in autumn for a tour on 
the Continent by himself, leaving them to the joyless 
routine of their unvaried life. It is sad to see the sud- 
den hush that falls upon the little things when he enters 
the house ; how their sports are cut short, and they try 
to steal away from the room. Would that I were the 
Emperor of Russia, and such a man my subject ! Should 
not he taste the knout ? Should not I make him howl ? 
That would be his suitable punishment : for he will never 
feel what worthier mortals would regard as the heavier 
penalty by far, the utter absence of confidence or real 



CONCERx^ING SOLITARY DAYS. 229 

affection between him and his children when they grow 
up. He will not mind that there never was a day when 
ths toddling creatures set up a shout of delight at his en- 
trance, and rushed at him and scaled him and searched 
in his pockets, and pulled him about ; nor that the day 
will never come when, growing into men and women, 
they will come to him for sympathy and guidance ia 
their little trials and perplexities. Oh, woful to think 
that there are parents, held in general estimation too, to 
whom their children would no more think of going for 
kindly sympathy, than they would think of going to 
Nova Zembla for warmth ! 

But this is an excursus : I would that my hand were 
wielding a stout horsewhip rather than a pen ! Let me 
return to the point of deviation, and say that a human 
being, if he be true-hearted, by living in a family, insen- 
sibly and constantly is gently turned from his own stiff 
track ; and goes through life sinuously, so to speak. But 
the lonely man settles into his own little ways. He is 
like the man who walks through the desert without a 
soul to elbow him for miles. He fixes his own hours ; 
he sits in his own corner, in his peculiar chair ; he ar- 
ranges the lamp where it best suits himself that it should 
stand ; he reads his newspaper when he pl*^ases, for no 
one else wants to see it ; he orders from tKe club the 
books that suit his own taste. And all this quite fitly : 
like the Duke of Argyle's attacks upon Lovd Derby, 
these things please himself, and do harm to nobody. 
It is not selfishness not to consult the wishe-s of other 
people, if there be no other people whose wishes you can 
consult. And, though with great suffering to hirpself, 1 
believe that many a kmd-hearted, precise old bArhelor, 



230 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

BtifFened into his own ways through thirty solitary years 
would yet make an effort to give them up, if he fancied 
that to yield a little from them was needful to the com- 
fort of others. He would give up the corner by the fire 
in which he has sat through the life of a generation : he 
would resign to another the peg on which his hat has 
hung through that long time. Still, all this would cost 
painful effort; and one need hardly repeat the common- 
place, that if people intend ever to get married, it is ex- 
pedient that they should do so before they have settled too 
rigidly into their own ways. 

It is a very touching thing, I think, to turn over the 
repositories of a lonely man after he is dead. You come 
upon so many indications of all his little ways and arrange- 
ments. In the case of men who have been the heads of 
large families, this work is done by those who have been 
most nearly connected with them, and who knew their 
ways before ; and such men, trained hourly to yield their 
own wishes in things small and great, have comparatively 
few of those little peculiar ways in which so much of 
their individuality seems to make its touching appeal to 
us after they are gone. But lonely men not merely have 
very many little arrangements of their own, but have a 
particular reserve in exhibiting these : there is a strong 
sensitiveness about them : you know how they would 
have shrunk in life from allowing any one to turn over 
their papers, or even to look into the arrangements of 
their wardrobe and their linen-press. I remember once, 
after the sudden death of a reserved old gentleman, being 
one of two or three who went over all his repositories. 
The other people who did so with me were hard-headed 
lawyers, and did not seem to mind much ; but I remember 
that it appeared to me a most touching sight we saw. All 



CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 2ol 

the little ways into which he had grown in forty lonely 
years ; all those details about his property (a very large 
one), which in life he had kept entirely to himself — all 
these we saw. I remember, lying on the top of the doc- 
uments contained in an iron chest, a little scrap of paper, 
the back of an ancient letter, on which was written a note 
of the amount of all his wealth. There you saw at once 
a secret which in life he would have confided to no one. 
I remember the precise arrangement of all the little piles 
of papers, so neatly tied up in separate parcels. I re- 
in smber the pocket-handkerchiefs, of several different 
kinds, each set wrapped up by itself in a piece of paper. 
It was curious to think that he had counted and sorted 
those handkerchiefs ; and now he was so far away. What 
a contrast, the little cares of many little matters like that, 
and the solemn realities of the unseen world ! I would 
not on any account have looked over these things alone. 
I should have had an awe-stricken expectation that I 
should be interrupted. I should have expected a sudden 
tap on the shoulder, and to be asked what I was doing 
there. And doubtless, in many such cases, when the repos- 
itories of the dead are first looked into by strangers, some 
one far away would be present, if such thiiigs could be. 

Solitary men, of the class which I have in my mind, 
are generally very hard-wrought men, and are kept too 
busy to allow very much time for reverie. Still, there is 
eome. There are evening hours after the task is done, 
whsn you sit by the fire, or walk up and down your study, 
and think that you are missing a great deal in this lonely 
life ; and that much more might be made of your stay in 
this world, while its best years are passing over. You 
think that there are many pleasant people in the world, 



232 CONCERNmG SOLITARY DAYS. 

people whom you would like to know, and who might lik« 
you if they knew you. But you and they have never 
met ; and if you go on in this solitary fashion, you and 
they never will meet. No doubt here is your comforta- 
ble room ; there is the blazing fire and the mellow lamp 
and the warmly-curtained windows ; and pervading the 
silent chamber, there is the softened murmur of the not 
distant sea. The backs of your books look out at you 
like old friends ; and after you are married, you w^on*t be 
able to afford to buy so many. Still, you recall the 
cheerful society in which you have often spent such 
hours, and you think it might be well if you were not so 
completely cut off from it. You fancy you hear the hum 
of lively conversation, such as gently exhilarates the mmd 
without tasking it ; and again you think what a loss it is 
to live where you hardly ever hear music, whether good 
or bad. You think of the awkward shyness and embar- 
rassment of manner which grows upon a man who is 
hardly ever called to join in general conversation. Yes, 
He knew our nature best who said that it is not good 
that man should be alone. We lean to our kind. There 
is indeed a solitariness which is the condition of an indi- 
vidual soul's being, which no association with others can 
do away ; but there is no reason why we should add to 
that burden of personality which the Bishop of Oxford, in 
one of his most striking sermons, has shown to be truly 
* an awful gift.' And say, youthful recluse (I don't mean 
youy middle-aged bachelor, I mean really young men of 
five or six and twenty), have you not sometimes, sitting 
by the fireside in the evening, looked at the opposite easy 
chair in the ruddy glow, and imagined that easy chair 
occupied by a gentle companion — one who would bring 
out into double strength all that is good in you — one 



CONCERNING SOLITAKY DAYS. 233 

who would sympathize with you and encourage you in 
all your work — one who would think you much wiser, 
cleverer, handsomer, and better than any mortal has ever 
yet thought you — the Angel in the House, in short, to 
use the strong expression of Mr. Coventry Patmore r 
Probably you have imagined all that : possibly you have 
in some degree realized it all. If not, in all likelihood thf 
fault lies chiefly with yourself. 

It must be a dismal thing for a solitary man to be takei 
ill : I mean so seriously ill as to be confined to bed, yet 
not so dangerously ill as to make some relation or friend 
come at all sacrifices to be with you. The writer speaka 
merely from logical considerations : happily he never ex- 
perienced the case. But one can see that in that lonely 
life, there can be none of those pleasant circumstances 
which make days in bed, when acute pain is over, or the 
dangerous turning-point of disease is happily past, as 
quietly enjoyable days as any man is ever likely to know. 
No one should ever be seriously ill (if he can help it) un- 
less he be one of a considerable household. Even then, 
indeed, it will be advisable to be ill as seldom as may be. 
But to a person who when well is very hard-worked, and 
a good deal worried, what restful days those are of which 
we are thinking ! You have such a feeling of peace and 
quietness. There you lie, in lazy luxury, when you are 
suffering merely the weakness of a serious illness, but the 
pain and danger are past. All your wants are so thought- 
fully and kindly anticipated. It is a very delightful sen- 
sation to lift your head from the pillow, and instantly to 
find yourself giddy and blind from loss of blood, and just 
drop your head down again. It is not a question, even 
for the most uneasily exacting conscience, whether you 



234 CONCERNING SOLITARY DAYS. 

are to work or not : it is plain you cannot. There is no 
difficulty on that score. And then you are weakened to 
that degree that nothing worries you. Things going 
wrong or remaining neglected about the garden or the 
stable, which would have annoyed you when well, cannot 
touch you here. All you want is to lie still and rest. 
Everything is still. You faintly hear the door-bell ring 
and though you live in a quiet country house where that 
phenomenon rarely occurs, you feel not the least curiosity 
to know who is there. You can look for a long time 
quite contentedly at the glow of the fire on the curtains 
and on the ceiling. You feel no anxiety about the com- 
ing in of the post ; but when your letters and newspapers 
arrive, you luxuriously read them, a very little at a time, 
and you soon forget all you have read. You turn over 
and fall asleep for a while ; then you read a little more. 
Your reviving appetite makes simple food a source of real 
enjoyment. The children come in, and tell you wonder- 
ful stories of all that has happened since you were ill. 
They are a little subdued at first, but soon grow noisy as 
usual ; and their noise does not in the least disturb you. 
You hear it as though it were miles off. After days and 
nights of great pain, you understand the blessing of ease and 
rest : you are disposed to be pleased with everything, and 
everybody wants to please you. The day passes away, 
and the evening darkness comes before you are aware. 
Everything is strange, and everything is soothing and 
pleasant. The only disadvantage is, that you grow so 
fond of lying in bed, that you shrink extremely from the 
'prospect of ever getting up again. 

Having arrived at this point, at 10.45 on this Friday 
evening, I gathered up all the pages which have been writ- 



CONCER^^rNG SOLITAEY DAYS. 235 

ten, and carried them to the fireside, and sitting there, I 
read them over ; and I confess, that on the whole, it 
struck me that the present essay was somewhat heavy. 
A severe critic might possibly say that it was stupid. I 
fancied it would have been rather good when it was 
sketched out ; but it has not come up to expectation. 
However, it is as good as I could make it ; and I trust 
the next essay may be better. It is a chance, you see, 
what the quality of any composition shall be. Give me 
a handle to turn, and I should undertake upon every 
day to turn it equally well. But in the working of the 
mental machine, the same pressure of steam, the same 
exertion of will, the same strain of what powers you have, 
will not always produce the same result. And if you, 
reader, feel some disappointment at looking at a new work 
by an old friend, and finding it not up to the mark you 
expected, think how much greater his disappointment 
must have been as the texture rolled out from the loom, 
and he felt it was not what he had wished. Here, to-night, 
the room and the house are as still as in my remembrance 
of the Solitary Days which are gone. But they will not 
be still to-morrow morning ; and they are so now because 
Bleep has hushed two little voices, and stayed the ceaseless 
movements of four little pattering feet. May those Sol- 
itary Days never return. They are well enough when the 
great look-out is onward ; but, oh ! how dreary such days 
must be to the old man whose main prospect is of the 
past ! I cannot imagine a lot more completely beyond all 
earthly consolation, than that of a man from whom wife 
and children have been taken away, and who lives now 
alone in the dwelling once gladdened by their presence, 
but now haunted by their memory. Let us humbly pray, 
my reader, that such a lot may never be yours or mine* 




CHAPTER VIII. 

CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

f^ PON any day in the months of June, July, 
August, and September, the stranger who 
should walk through the handsome streets, 
crescents, and terraces which form the West 
End of Glasgow, might be led to fancy that the plague 
was in the town, or that some fearful commercial crash 
had brought ruin upon all its respectable families, — so 
utterly deserted is the place. The windows are all done 
up with brown paper : the door-plates and handles, ere- 
while of glittering brass, are black with rust : the flights 
of steps which lead to the front-doors of the houses have 
furnished a field for the chalked cartoons of vagabond 
boys with a turn for drawing. The more fashionable the 
terrace or crescent, the more completely is it deserted : 
our feet waken dreary echoes as we pace the pavement. 
We naturally inquire of the first policeman we meet. 
What is the matter with Glasgow, — has anything dread- 
ful happened ? And we receive for answer the highly 
intelligible explanation, that the people are all Down the 
Water. 

We are enjoying (shall we suppose) our annual holiday 
from the turmoil of Westminster Hall and the throng of 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 237 

London streets ; and Ave have taken Glasgow on our way 
to the Highlands. We have two or three letters of intro- 
duction to two or three of the merchant-princes of the city; 
and having heard a great deal of the splendid hospitalities 
of the "Western metropolis of the North, we have been 
anticipating with considerable satisfaction stretching our 
limbs beneath their mahogany, and comparing their cui- 
sine and their cellar with the descriptions of both which 
we have often heard from Mr. Allan M'Collop, a Glas- 
gow man who is getting on fairly at the bar. But when 
we go to see our new acquaintances, or when they pay us 
a hurried visit at our hotel, each of them expresses his 
deep regret that he cannot ask us to his house, which he 
tells us is shut up, his wife and family being Down the 

Water. No explanation is vouchsafed of the meaning of , 
the phrase, which is so familiar to Glasgow folk that they 
forget how oddly it sounds on the ear of the stranger. 
Our first hasty impression, perhaps, from the policeman's 
sad face (no cold meat for him now, honest man), was 
that some sudden inundation had swept away the entire 
wealthier portion of the population, — at the same time 
curiously sparing the toiling masses. But the pleasant 
and cheerful look of our mercantile friend, as he states 
what has become of his domestic circle, shows us that 
nothing very serious is amiss. At length, after much 
meditation, we conclude that the people are at the sea- 
side ; and as that lies down the Clyde from Glasgow, 
when a Glasgow man means to tell us that his family and 
himself are enjoying the fresh breezes and the glorious 
scenery of the Frith of Clyde, he says they are Down the 

Water. 

Everybody everywhere of course longs for the coun- 
try, the sea-side, change of air and scene, at some period 



238 . CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

during the year. Almost every man of the wealthier 
and more cultivated class in this country has a vacation, 
longer or shorter. But there never was a city whence 
the annual migration to the sea-side is so universal or so 
protracted as it is from Glasgow. By the month of March 
in each year, every house along the coast within forty 
miles of Glasgow is let for the season at a rent which we 
should say must be highly remunerative. Many families 
go to the coast early in May, and every one is down the 
water by the first of June. Most people now stay till the 
end of September. The months of June and July form 
what is called ' the first season ; * August and September 
are * the second season.' Until within the last few years, 
one of these ' seasons ' was thought to furnish a Glasgow 
family with vigour and buoyancy sufficient to face the 
winter, but now almost all who can afford it stay at the 
sea-side during both. And from the little we have seen 
of Glasgow, we do not wonder that such should be the 
case. No doubt Glasgow is a fine city on the whole. 
The Trongate is a noble street ; the park on the banks of 
the Kelvin, laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton, furnishes some 
pleasant walks ; the Sauchyhall-road is an agreeable promi- 
enade ; Claremont, Crescent and Park Gardens consist of 
houses which would be of the first class even in Belgra- 
via or Tyburnia ; and from the West-end streets, there 
are prospects of valley and mountain which are worth 
going some distance to see. But the atmosphere, though 
comparatively free from smoke, wants the exhilarating 
freshness of breezes just arrived from the Atlantic. The 
6un does not set in such glory beyond Gilmore-hill, as 
behind the glowing granite of Goatfell ; and the trunks of 
the trees round Glasgow are (if truth must be spoken) a 
good deal blacker than might be desired, while their 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 239 

leaves are somewhat shrivelled up by the chemical gales 
of St. Rollox. No wonder, then, that the purest of pui;e 
air, the bluest of blue waves, the most picturesque of no- 
ble hills, the most purple of heather, the greenest of ivy, 
the thickest of oak-leaves, the most fragi-ant of roses and 
honeysuckle, should fairly smash poor old Glasgow during 
the summer months, and leave her* not a leg to stand on; 

The ladies and children of the multitudinous families 
that go down the water, remain there permanently, of 
course : most of the men go up to business every morn- 
ing and return to the sea-side every night. This implies 
a journey of from sixty to eighty miles daily; but the 
rapidity and the cheapness of the communication, render 
the journey a comparatively easy one. Still, it occupies 
three or four hours of the day ; and many persons remain 
in town two or three nights weekly, smuggling themselves 
away in some little back parlour of their dismantled dwel- 
lings. But let us accept our friend's invitation to spend 
a few days at his place down the water, and gather up 
some particulars of the mode of life there. 

There are two ways of reaching the coast from Glas- 
gow. We may sail all the way down the Clyde, in 
steamers generally remarkably well-appointed and man- 
aged; or we may go by railway to Greenock, twenty- 
three miles off, and catch the steamer there. By going 
by railway we save an hour, — a great deal among peo- 
ple with whom emphatically time is money, — and we 
escape a somewhat tedious sail down the river. The 
steamer takes two hours to reach Greenock, while some 
express trains which run all the way without stopping, ac- 
complish the distance in little more than half an hour. 
The sail down the Clyde to Greenock is in parts very in- 
teresting. The banks of the river are in some places 



240 CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

richlj wooded : on the north side there are picturesque 
hills ; and the huge rock on which stands the ancient cas- 
tle of Dumbarton, is a striking feature. But we have 
never met any Glasgow man or woman who did not 
Bpeak of the sail between Glasgow and Greenock as des- 
perately tedious, and by all means to be avoided. Then 
in warm summer weather the Clyde is nearly as filthy as 
the Thames ; and sailing over a sewer, even through fine 
ecenery, has its disadvantages. So we resolve to go with 
our friend by railway to Greenock, and thus come upon 
the Clyde where it has almost opened into the sea. Quite 
opened into the sea, we might say : for at Greenock the 
river is three miles broad, while at Glasgow it is only 
some three hundred yards. 

' Meet me at Bridge-street station at five minutes to 

four,' says Mr. B , after we have agreed to spend a 

few days on the Clyde. There are a couple of hours to 
spare, which we give to a basin of very middling soup at 
McLerie's, and to a visit to the cathedral, which is a 
magnificent specimen of the severest style of Gothic archi- 
tecture. We are living at the Royal Hotel in George 
Square, which we can heartily recommend to tourists ; 
and when our hour approaches. Boots brings us a cab. 
We are not aware whether there is any police regulation' 
requiring the cabs of Glasgow to be extremely dirty, and 
the horses that draw them to be broken-winded, and lame 
of not more than four nor less than two legs. Perhaps 
ii is merely the general wish of the inhabitants that has 
brought about the present state of things. However this 
may be, the unhappy animal that draws us reaches 
Bridge -street station at last. As our carriage draws up 
we catch a glimpse of half-a-dozen men, in that peculiar 
green dress which railway servants affect, hastening to 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 241 

conceal themselves behind the pillars which decorate the 
front of the building, while two or three excited ticket- 
porters seize our baggage, and offer to carry it up-stairs. 
But our friend with Scotch foresight and economy, has 
told us to make the servants of the Company do their 
work. ' Hands off,' we say to the ticket-porters ; and 
walking up the steps we round a pillar, and smartly tap- 
ping on the shoulder one of the green-dressed gentlemen 
lurking there, we indicate to him the locality of our port- 
manteau. Sulkily he shoulders it, and precedes us to the 
booking-office. The fares are moderate ; eighteen-pence 
to Greenock, first class : and we understand that persons 
who go daily, by taking season tickets, travel for much 
less. The steamers afford a still cheaper access to the 
sea-side, conveying passengers from Glasgow to Rothe- 
say, about forty-five miles, for sixpence cabin and three- 
pence deck. The trains start from a light and spacious 
shed, which has the very great disadvantage of being at 
an elevation of thirty or forty feet above the ground 
level. Railway companies have sometimes spent thou- 
sands of pounds to accomplish ends not a tenth part so 
desirable as is the arransino; Iheir stations in such a man- 
ner as that people in departing, and still more in arriv- 
ing, shall be spared the annoyance and peril of a break- 
ncck staircase like that at the Glasgow railway station. 
It is a vast comfort when cabs can draw up alongside the 
train, under cover, so that people can get into them at 
once, as at Euston-square. 

The railway carriages that run between Glasgow and 
Greenock have a rather peculiar appearance. The first- 
class carriages are of twice the usual length, having six 
compartments instead of three. Each compartment holds 
eight passengers ; and as this accommodation is gained 
16 



242 CONCEENING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

bj increasing the breadth of the carriages, brass bars are 
placed across the windows, to prevent any one from put- 
ting out his head. Should any one do so, his head would 
run some risk of coming in collision with the other train ; 
and although, from physiological reasons, tome heads 
might receive no injury in such a case, the carriage with 
■which they came in contact w^ould probably suffer. The 
expense of painting is saved by the carriages being built 
of teak, which when varnished has a cheerful light-oak 
colour. There is a great crowd of men on the platform, 
for the four o'clock train is the chief down-train of the 
day. The bustle of the business-day is over ; there is 
a general air of relief and enjoyment. We meet our 
friend punctual to the minute ; we take our seat on the 
comfortable blue cushions ; the bell rings ; the engine 
pants and tugs ; and we are off ' down the water.' 

We pass through a level country on leaving Glasgow : 
there are the rich fields which tell of Scotch agricultural 
industry. It is a bright August afternoon : the fields are 
growing yellow ; the trees and hedges still wear their 
summer green. In a quarter of an hour the sky sudden- 
ly becomes overcast. It is "not a cloud : don't be afraid 
of an unfavourable change of weather; we have merely 
plunged into the usual atmosphere of dirty and ugly 
Paisley. Without a pause, we sweep by, and here turn 
off to the right. That line of railway from which we 
have turned aside runs on to Dumfries and Carlisle ; a 
branch of it keeps along the Ayrshire coast to Ardrossan 
and Ayr. In a little while we are skimming the surface 
of a bleak, black moor ; it is a dead level, and not in the 
least interesting : but, after a plunge into the mirk dark- 
ness of a long tunnel, we emerge into daylight again , 
and there, sure enough, are the bright waters of the 



CONCERXIXG GLASGOW DOWN THE WATEE. 243 

Clyde. We are on its south side ; it has spread out to 
the breadth of perhaps a couple of miles. That rocky 
height on its north shore is Dumbarton Castle ; that great 
mass beyond is Ben Lomond, at whose base lies Loch 
liOmond, the queen of Scottish lakes, now almost as 
familiar to many a cockney tourist as a hundred years 
since to Rob Roy Macgregor. "We keep close by the 
water's edge, skirting a range of hills on wliich grow the 
finest strawberries in Scotland. Soon, to the right, we 
see many masts, many great rafts of timber, many fun- 
nels of steamers ; and there, creeping along out in the 
middle of the river, is the steamer we are to join, which 
left Glasgow an hour before us. We have not stopped 
since we left Glasgow ; thirty-five minutes have elapsed, 
and now we sweep into a remarkably tasteless and incon- 
venient station. This is Greenock at last; but, as at 
Glasgow, the station is some forty feet above the ground. 
A railway cart at the foot of a long stair receives the 
luggage of passengers, and then sets off at a gallop down 
a dirty little lane. We follow at a run ; and, a hundred 
and fifty yards off, we come on a long range of wharf, 
beside which lie half-a-dozen steamers, sputtering out 
their white steam with a roar, as though calling impa- 
tiently for their passengers to come faster. Our train has 
brought passengers for a score of places on the Frith ; 
and in the course of the next hour and a half, these ves- 
sels will disperse them to their various destinations. By 
way of guidance to the inexperienced, a pQst is erected 
on the wharf, from which arms project, pointing to the 
places of the different steamers. The idea is a good one, 
and if carried out with the boldness with which it was 
conceived, much advantage might be derived by stran- 
gers. But a serious di'awback about these indicators is. 



244 CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

that thej are invariably pointed in tlie wrong direction, 
which renders them considerably less useful than they 
might otherwise be. Fortunately we have a guide, for 
there is not a moment to lose. We hasten on board, 
over an awkward little gangway, kept by a policeman of 
rueful countenance, who punches the heads of several 
little boys w'ho look on with awe. Bareheaded and bare- 
footed girls offer baskets of gooseberries and plums of 
no tempting appearance. Ragged urchins bellow ' Day's 
Penny Paper ! Glasgow Daily News r In a minute 
or two, the ropes are cast off, and the steamers diverge 
as from a centre to their various ports. 

We are going to Dunoon. Leaving the ship-yards of 
Greenock echoing with multitudinous hammerings, and 
rounding a point covered with houses, we see before us 
Gourock, the nearest to Greenock of the places ' down 
the water.' It is a dirty little village on the left side of 
the Frith. A row of neat houses, quite distinct from 
the dirty village, stretches for two miles along the water's 
edge. The hills rise immediately behind these. The 
Frith is here about three miles in breadth. It is Ren- 
frewshire on the left hand ; a few miles on, and it will 
be Ayrshire. On the right are the hills of Argyleshire. 
And now, for many miles on either side, the shores of 
tlie Frith, and the shores of the long arms of the sea 
that run up among those Argyleshire mountains, are 
fringed with villas, castles, and cottages — the retreats 
of Glasgow anen and their families. It is not, perhaps, 
saying much for Glasgow to state that one of its greatest 
advantages is the facility witli which one can get away 
from it, and the beauty of the places to which one can 
get. But true it is, that there is hardly a great city in 
the world which is so well off in this respect. For six- 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 245 

pence, the artisan of Bridgeton or Calton can travel 
forty miles in the purest air, over as blue a sea, and 
amid as noble hills, as can be found in Britain. The 
Clyde is a great highway : a highway traversed, indeed, 
by a merchant navy scarcely anywhere surpassed in ex- 
tent ; but a highway, too, whose gracious breezes, through 
the summer and autumn time, are ever ready to revive 
the heart of the pale weaver, with his thin wife and 
child, and to fan the cheek of the poor consumptive 
needlewoman into the glow of something like country 
health and strength. 

After Greenock is passed, and the river has grown into 
the Frith, the general features of the scene remain very 
much the same for upwards of twenty miles. The water 
varies from three to seven or eight miles in breadth ; and 
then suddenly opens out to a breadth of twenty or thirty 
miles. Hills, fringed with wood along their base, and 
gradually passing into moorland as they ascend, form 
the shores on either side. The rocky islands of the Great 
and Little Cumbrae occupy the middle of the Frith, about 
fourteen or fifteen miles below Greenock : to the right lies 
the larger island of Bute ; and further on the still larger 
island of Arran. The hills on the Argyleshire side of the 
Frith are generally bold and precipitous: those on the 
Ayrshire side are of much less elevation. The character 
of all the places ' down the water ' is almost identical : 
they consist of a row of houses, generally detached villas 
or cottages, reaching along the shore, at only a few yards 
distance from the water, with the hills arising immediately 
behind. The beach is not very convenient for bathing, 
being generally rocky ; though here and there we find a 
strip of yellow sand. Trees and shrubs grow in the richest 
WU.J down to the w^ater*s edge. The trees are numerous^ 



246 CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

and luxuriant rather than large ; oaks predominate ; we 
should say few of them are a hundred years old. Ivy and 
honeysuckle grow in profusion ; for several miles along 
the coast, near Largs, there is a perpendicular wall of 
rock from fifty to one hundred feet in height, which fol- 
lows the windings of the shore at a distance of one hundred 
and fifty yards from the water, enclosing between itself 
and the sea a long ribbon of fine soil, on which shrubs, 
flowers, and fruit grow luxuriantly ; and this natural 
rampart, which advances and retreats as we pursue the 
I'oad at its base, like the bastions and curtains of some 
magnificent feudal castle, is in many places clad with ivy, 
so fresh and green that we can hardly believe that for 
months in the year it is wet with the salt spray of the 
Atlantic. Here and there, along the coast, are places 
where the land is capable of cultivation for a mile or two 
inland ; but, as the rule, the hill ascends almost from the 
water's edge, into granite and heather. 

Let us try to remember the names of the places which 
reach along the Frith upon either hand : we believe that 
a list of them will show that not without reason it is said 
that Glasgow is unrivalled in the number of her sea-side 
retreats. On the right hand, as we go down the Frith, 
there are Helensburgh, Row, Roseneath, Shandon, Gare- 
loch-head. Cove, Kilcreggan, Lochgoil-head, Arrochar, 
Ardentinny, Strone, Kilmun, Kirn, Dunoon, Inellan, 
Toward, Port Bannatyne, Rothesay, Askog, Colintrave, 
Tynabruach. Sometimes these places form for miles one 
long range of villas. Indeed, from Strone to Toward, ten 
or twelve miles, the coast is one continuous street. On 
the left hand of the Frith are Gourock, Ashton, Inverkip, 
Wemyss Bay, Skelmorlie, Largs, Fairlie : then comes a 
bleak range of sandy coast, along which stand Ardrossan, 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 247 

Troon, and Ayr. In the island of Cumbrae is Millport, 
conspicuous by the tall spire which marks the site of an 
Episcopal chapel and college of great architectural beauty, 
built within the last few years. And in Arran are the 
villages of Lamlash and Brodick. The two Cumbrae 
islands constitute a parish. A simple-minded clergyman, 
not long deceased, who held the cure for many years, was 
wont, Sunday by Sunday, to pray (in the church service) 
for *the islands of the Great and Little Cumbrae, and 
also for the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland.* 

But all this while the steam has been fiercely chafing 
through the funnel as we have been stopping at Gourock 
quay. We are away at last, and are now crossing the 
Frith towards the Argyleshire side. A mile or two down, 
along the Ayrshire side, backed by the rich woods of 
Ardgowan, tall and spectral-white, stands the Cloch light- 
house. We never have looked at it without thinking how 
many a heart-broken emigrant must be remembering that 
severely simple white tower as almost the last thing he 
saw in Scotland when he was leaving it for ever. The 
Frith opens before us as we advance : we are running at 
the rate (quite usual among Clyde steamers) of sixteen 
or seventeen miles an hour. There, before us, is Cum- 
brae : over Bute and over Cumbrae look the majestic 
mountains of Arran ; that great granite peak is Goat-fell. 
And on a clear day, far out, guarding the entrance to the 
Frith, rising sheer up from the deep sea, at ten miles' dis- 
tance from the nearest land, looms Ailsa, white with sea- 
birds, towering to the height of twelve or thirteen hundred 
feet. It is a rocky islet of about a mile in circumference, 
and must have been thrown up by volcanic agency ; for 
the water around it is hundreds of feet in depth. 

Out in the middle of the Frith we can see the long, 



218 CONCERXING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER, 

low, white line of buildings on either side of it, nestling 
at the foot of the hills. We are drawing near Dunoon. 
That opening on the right is the entrance to Loch Long 
and Loch Goyle ; and a little further on we pass the en- 
trance to the Holy Loch, on whose shore is the ancient 
burying-place of the family of Argyle. How remarkably 
asteful many of these villas are ! They are generally 
built in the Elizabethan style : they stand in grounds 
varying from half an acre up to twenty or thirty acres, 
very prettily laid out with shrubbery and flowers ; a num- 
ber (we can see, for we are now skirting the Argyleshire 
coast at the distance of only a few hundred yards) have 
conservatories and hot-houses of more or less extent : flasr- 
staffs appear to be much affected (for send a landsman to 
the coast, and he is sure to become much more marine 
than a sailor) : and those pretty bow-windows, with the 
crimson fuchsias climbing up them — those fantastic gables 
and twisted chimneys — those shining evergreens and 
cheerful gravel walks — with no lack of pretty girls in 
round hats, and sportive children rolling about the trimly- 
kept grass plots — all seen in this bright August sunshine 
— all set off against this blue smiling expanse of sea — ■ 
make a picture so gay and inviting, that we really do not 
wonder any more that Glasgow people should like to 'go 
down the water.' 

Here is Dunoon pier. Several of the coast places have, 
like Dunoon, a long jetty of wood running out a consider- 
able distance into the water, for the accommodation of the 
Bteamers, which call every hour or two throughout the 
day. Other places have deep water close in-shore, and 
are provided with a wharf of stone. And several of the 
recently founded villages (and half of those we have enu- 
merated have sprung up within the last ten years) have 



/ 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOT\TJT THE WATER. 249 

no landing-place at which steamers can touch ; and their 
passengers have to land and embark by the aid of a ferry- 
boat. We touch the pier at last : a gangway is hastily 
thrown from the pier to the steamer, and in company with 
many others we go ashore. At the landward end of tho 
jetty, detained there by a barrier of twopence each of toll, 
in round hats and alpaca dresses, are waiting our friend'3 
wife and children, from whom we receive a welcome dis- 
tinguished by that frankness which is characteristic of 
Glasgow people. But we do not intend so far to imitate 
the fashion of some modern tourists and biographers, as to 
give our 4-eaders a description of our friend's house and 
family, his appearance and manners. We shall only say 
of him what will never single him out — for it may be 
said of hundreds more — that he is a wealthy, intelhgent, 
well-informed, kind-hearted Glasgow merchant. And if 
his daughters did rather bore us by their enthusiastic de- 
scriptions of the sermons of ' our minister,' Mr. Macduff, 
the still grander orations of Mr. Caird, and the altogether 
unexampled eloquence of Dr. Gumming, why, they were 
only showing us a thoroughly Glasgow feature; for no- 
where in Britain, we should fancy, is there So much talk 
about preaching and preachers. 

In sailing down the Frith, one gets no just idea of the 
richness and beauty of its shores. We have said that a 
little strip of fine soil, — in some places only fifty or 
sixty yards in breadth, — runs like a ribbon, occasionally 
broadening out to three or four times that extent, along 
the sea-margin ; beyond this ribbon of ground come the 
wild moor and mountain. In sailing down the Frith, 
our eye is caught by the large expanse of moorland, and 
we do not give due importance to the rich strip which 
bounds it, like an edging of gold lace (to use King 



250 CONCEENING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

James's comparison) round a russet petticoat. When 
we land we understand things better. We find next the 
sea, at almost any point along the Frith, the turnpike 
road, generally nearly level, and beautifully smooth. 
Here and there, in the places of older date, we find quite 
a street of contiguous houses ; but the general rule is of 
detached dwellings of all grades, from the humblest cot- 
tage to the most luxurious villa. At considerable inter- 
vals, there are residences of a much higher class than 
even this last, whose grounds stretch for long distances 
along the shore. Such places are Ardgowan, Kelly, 
Skelmorlie Castle, and Kelburne, on the Ayrshire side ; 
and on the other shore of the Frith, Roseneath Castle, 
Toward Castle, and Mountstuart.* And of dwellings of 
a less ambitious standing than these really grand abodes, 
yet of a mark much above that suggested by the word 
villa, we may name the very showy house of Mr. Napier, 
the eminent maker of marine steam-engines, on the Gare- 
loch, a building in the Saracenic style, which cost we 
are afraid to say how many thousand pounds ; the finely- 
placed castle of Wemyss, built from the design of Bil- 
lings ; and the very striking piece of baronial architect- 
ure called Knock Castle, the residence of Mr. Steel, a 
wealthy shipbuilder of Greenock. The houses along the 
Frith are, in Scotch fashion, built exclusively of stone, 
which is obtained with great facility. Along the Ayr- 
shire coast, the warm-looking red sandstone of the dis- 
trict is to be had everywhere, almost on the surface. 
One sometimes sees a house rising, the stone being taken 

* Ardgowan, residence of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart; Kelly, Mr. 
Scott; Skelmorlie, the Earl of Eglinton; Kelburne, the Earl of Glas- 
gow; Roseneath, the Duke of Argyle; Toward, Mr. Kirkwall Finlay 
Mountstuart, the Marquis of Bute. 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 251 

from a deep quarry close to it: the same crane often 
serving to lift a block from the quarry, and to place it in 
its permanent position upon the advancing wall. We 
have said how rich is vegetation all along the Frith, until 
we reach the sandy downs from Ardrossan to Ayr. All 
evergreens grow with great rapidity : ivy covers dead 
walls very soon. To understand in what luxuriance 
vegetable life may be maintained close to the sea-margin, 
one must walk along the road whi^h leads from the West 
Bay at Dunoon towards Toward. We never saw trees 
so covered with honeysuckle ; and fuchsias a dozen feet 
in height are quite common. In this sweet spot, in an 
Elizabethan house of exquisite design, retired within 
grounds where fine taste has done its utmost, resides, 
during the summer vacation (and the summer vacation 
is six months !), Mr. Buchanan, the Professor of Logic 
in the University of Glasgow. It must be a very fair 
thing to teach logic at Glasgow, if the revenue of that 
chair maintains the groves and flowers, and (we may 
add) the liberal hospitalities, of Ardfillane. 

One pleasing circumstance about the Frith of Clyde, 
which we remark the more from its being unhappily the 
exception to the general rule in Scotland, is the general 
neatness and ecclesiastical character of the churches. 
The parish church of Dunoon, standing on a wooded 
height, rising from the water, with its grey tower looking 
over the trees, is a dignified and commanding object. 
The churches of Roseneath and Row, which have been 
built within a year or two, are correct and elegant speci- 
mens of ecclesiastical Gothic : indeed they are so thor- 
oughly like churches, that John Knox would assuredly 
have pulled them down had they been standing in his 
day. And here and there along the coast the rich Glas* 



252 CONCEKNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

gow merchants and the neighbouring proprietors have 
built pretty Httle chapels, whose cross-crowned gables, 
Bteep-pitched roofs, dark oak wood-work, and stained 
windows, are pleasant indications that old prejudice has 
given way among cultivated Scotchmen ; and that it has 
come to be understood that it is false religion as well as 
bad taste and sense to make God's house the shabbiest, 
dirtiest, and most uncomfortable house in the parish. 
Some of these sea-side places of worship are crowded in 
summer by a fashionable congregation, and comparatively 
deserted in winter when the Glasgow folks are gone. 

A very considerable number of the families that go 
* down the water ' occupy houses which are their own 
property. There must be, one would think, a special 
interest about a house which is one's own. A man must 
become attached to a spot where he himself planted the 
hollies and yews, and his children have marked their 
growth year by year. Still, many people do not like to 
be tied to one place, and prefer varying their quarters 
each season. Very high rents are paid for good houses 
on the Frith of Clyde. From thirty to fifty pounds a 
month is a common charge for a neat villa at one of the 
last founded and most fashionable places. A little less is 
charged for the months of August and September than 
for June and July ; and if a visitor takes a house for the 
four months which constitute the season, he may general- 
ly have it for May and October without further cost. 
Decent houses or parts of houses {flats as they are 
called), may be had for about ten pounds a month ; and 
at those places which approach to the character of a 
town, as Largs, Rothesay, and Dunoon, lodgings may be 
obtained where attendance is provided by the people of 
the house. 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 253 

A decided drawback about the sea-side places within 
twenty miles from Greenock, is their total want of that 
fine sandj beach, so firm and dry and inviting when the 
tide is out, which forms so great an attraction at Ardros* 
san, Troon, and Ayr. At a few points, as for instance 
the West Bay at Dunoon, there is a beautiful expanae 
of yellow sand : but as a rule, where the shore does not 
consist of precipitous rocks, sinking at once into deep 
water, it is made of great rough stones, which form a 
most unpleasant footing for bathers. In front of most 
villas a bathing place is formed by clearing the stones 
away. Bathing machines, we should mention, are quite 
unknown upon the Frith of Clyde. 

So much for the locality which is designated by the 
phrase, Down the Water : and now we can imagine our 
readers asking what kind of life Glasgow people lead 
there. Of course there must be a complete breaking up 
of all city ways and habits, and a general return to a 
simpler and more natural mode of living. Our few days 
at Dunoon, and a few days more at two other places on 
the Frith, were enough to give us some insight into the 
usual order of things. By seven or half-past seven 
o'clock in the morning the steam is heard by us, as we 
are snug in bed, fretting through the waste-pipe of the 
early boat for Glasgow ; and with great complacency 
we picture to ourselves the unfortunate business-men, 
with whom we had a fishing excursion last night, already 
up, and breakfasted, and hurrying along the shore to- 
wards the vessel which is to bear them back to the count- 
ing-house and the Exchange. Poor fellows ! They 
sacrifice a good deal to grow rich. At each village along 
the shore the steamer gets an accession to the number of 
her passengers ; for the most part of trim, close-shaved^ 



254 CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

well-dressed gentlemen, of sober aspect and not many 
words ; though here and there comes some whiskered 
and moustached personage, with a shirt displaying a pat- 
tern of ballet-dancers, a shooting coat of countless pock- 
ets, and trousers of that style which, in our college days, 
we used to call loud. A shrewd bank-manager told uj 
that he always made a mental memorandum of such in 
dividuals, in case they should ever come to him to bor- 
row money. Don't they wish they may get it ! The 
steamer parts with her entire freight at Greenock, whence 
an express train rapidly conveys our friends into the 
heat and smoke of Glasgow. Before ten o'clock all of 
them are at their work. For us, who have the day at our 
own disposal, we have a refreshing dip in the sea at 
rising, then a short w^alk, and come in to breakfast with 
an appetite foreign to Paper Buildings. It is quite a 
strong sensation when the post appears about ten o'clock, 
bearing tidings from the toiling world we have left be- 
hind. Those families who have their choice dine at two 
o'clock — an excellent dinner hour when the day is not 
a working one : the families whose male members are 
in town, sometimes postpone the most important engage- 
ment of the day till their return at six or half-past six 
o'clock. As for the occupations of the day, there are 
boating and yachting, wandering along the beach, lying 
on the heather looking at Arran through the sun-mist, 
lounging into the reading-room, dipping into any portion of 
The Times except the leading articles, turning over the 
magazines, and generally enjoying the blessing of rest. 
Fishing is in high favour, especially among the ladies. 
Hooks baited with muscles are sunk to the ground by 
leaden weights (the fishers are in a boat), and abundance 
of whitings are caught when the weather is favourable. 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 255 

We confess we don't think the employment ladylike. 
Sticking the muscles upon the hooks is no work for fair 
fincrers ; neither is the pulling the captured fish off the 
hooks. And, even in the pleasantest company, we can- 
not see anything very desirable in sitting in a boat, all 
the floor of which is covered by unhappy whitings and 
codlings flapping about in their last agony. Many young 
ladies row with great vigour and adroitness. And as we 
walk along the shore in the fading twilight, we often 
hear, from boats invisible in the gathering shadows, 
music mellowed by the distance into something very soft 
and sweet. The lords of the creation have come back 
by the late boats ; and we meet Pater- familias enjoying 
his evening walk, surrounded by his children, shouting 
with delight at having their governor among them once 
more. No wonder that, after a day amid the hard 
matter-of-fact of business life, he should like to hasten 
away to the quiet fireside and the loving hearts by the 
sea. 

Few are the hard-wrought men who cannot snatch an 
entire day from business sometimes : and then there is a 
pic-nic. Glasgow folk have even more, we believe, than 
the average share of stiff dinner parties when in town : 
we never saw people who seemed so completely to en^ 
joy the freshness and absence of formality which char- 
acterize the well-assorted entertainment al fresco. We 
were at one or two of these ; and we cannot describe the 
universal gaiety and light-heartedness, extending to 
grave Presbyterian divines and learned Glasgow pro- 
fessors ; the blue sea and the smiling sky ; the rocky, 
promontory where our feast was spread ; its abundance 
and variety ; the champagne which flowed like water ; 
tlie joviality and cleverness of many of the men ; the 



256 CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

frankness and pretty faces of all of the women.* We 
had a pleasant yachting excursion one day ; and the 
delight of a new sensation was well exemplified in the 
intense enjoyment of dinner in the cramped little cabin 
where one could hardly turn. And great was the sight 
when our host, with irrepressible pride, produced his 
preserved meats and vegetables, as for an Arctic voy- 
age, although a messenger sent in the boat which was 
towing behind could have procured them fresh in ten 
minutes. 

A Sunday at the sea-side, or as Scotch people prefer 
calling it, a Sdbhath, is an enjoyable thing. The steam- 
ers that come down on Saturday evening are crammed 
to the last degree. Houses which are already fuller 
than they can hold, receive half-a-dozen new inmates, — 
how stowed away we cannot even imagine. We cannot 
but reject as apocryphal the explanation of a Glasgow 
wut, that on such occasions poles are projected from the 
upper windows, upon which young men of business roost 
until the morning. Late walks, and the spooniest of 
flirtations characterize the Saturday evening. Every 
one, of course, goes to church on Sunday morning ; no 
Glasgow man who values his character durst stop away. 
We shall not soon forget the beauty of the calm Sunday 
on that beautiful shore : the shadows of the distant 
mountains ; the smooth sea ; the church-bells, faintly 
heard from across the water ; the universal turning-out 
of the population to the house of prayer, or rather of 

* We do not think, from what we have seen, that Glasgow is rich 
in beauties ; though pretty faces are very common. Times are im- 
proved, however, since the days of the lady who said, on being asked 
if there were many beauties in Glasgow, ' Oh no; very few; there are 
only THREE OF us.' 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 257 

preaching. It was almost too much for us to find Dr. 
Gumming here before us, giving all his old brilliancies 
to enraptured multitudes. AYe had hoped he was four 
hundred and odd miles off; but we resigned ourselves, 
like the Turk, to what appears an inevitable destiny. 
This gentleman, we felt, is really one of the institutions 
of the country, and no more to be escaped than the in- 
come-tax. 

Morning service over, most people take a walk. This 
would have been regarded in Scotland a few years since 
as a profanation of the day. But there is a general air 
of quiet ; people speak in lower tones ; there are no 
joking and laughing. And the Frith, so covered with 
steamers on week-days, is to-day unruffled by a single 
paddle-wheel. Still it is a mistake to fancy that a Scotch 
Sunday is necessarily a gloomy thing. There are no ex- 
cursion trains, no pleasure trips in steamers, no tea-gar- 
dens open : but it is a day of quiet domestic enjoyment, 
not saddened but hallowed by the recognized sacredness 
of the day. The truth is, the feeling of the sanctity of 
the Sahhath is so ingrained into the nature of most 
Scotchmen by their early training, that they could not 
enjoy Sunday pleasuring. Their religious sense, their 
superstition if you choose, would make them miserable 
on a Sunday excursion. 

The Sunday morning service is attended by a crowded 
congregation : the church is not so full in the afterDocn. 
In some places there is evening service, which is well 
attended. We shall not forget one pleasant walk, along 
a quiet road bounded by trees as rich and green as 
though they grew in Surrey, though the waves were 
lapping on the rocks twenty yards off, and the sun was 
going down behind the mountains of Cowal, to a pretty 
17 



2j8 CONCERNINiS GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 

little chapel where we attended evening worship upon 
our last Sunday on the Clyde. 

Every now and then, as we are taking our saunter by 
the shore after breakfast, we perceive, well out in the 
Frith, a steamer, decked with as many flags as can pos- 
sibly be displayed about her rigging. The strains of a 
band of music come by starts upon the breeze ; a big 
drum is heard beating away when we can hear nothing 
else ; and a sound of howling springs up at intervals. 
Do not fancy that these yells imply that anything is 
wrong ; that is merely the way in which working folk 
enjoy themselves in this country. That steamer has been 
hired lor the day by some wealthy manufacturer, who is 
giving his ' hands ' a day's pleasure-sailing. They left 
Glasgow at seven or eight o'clock : they will be taken, 
probably to Arran, and there feasted to a moderate ex- 
tent ; and at dusk they w^ill be landed at the Broomielaw 
again. We lament to say that very many Scotch people 
of the working class seem incapable of enjoying a holi- 
day without getting drunk and uproarious. We do noi 
speak from hearsay, but from what we have ourselves 
seen. Once or twice we found ourselves on board a 
steamer crowded with a most disagreeable mob of intoxi- 
cated persons, among whom, we grieve to say, we saw 
many women. The authorities of the vessel appeared 
entirely to lack both the power and the will to save re- 
spectable passengers from the insolence of the ' roughs.* 
The Highland fling may be a very picturesque and na- 
tional dance, but when executed on a crowded deck by a 
maniacal individual, with puffy face and blood-shot eyes, 
swearing, yelling, dashing up against peaceable people, 
and mortally drunk, we should think it should be mat- 
ter less of aesthetical than of police consideration. Un 



CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER. 259 

less the owners of the Clyde steamers wish to drive all 
decent persons from their boats, they must take vigorous 
steps to repress such scandalous goings-on as we have 
"witnessed more than once or twice. And we also take 
the liberty to suggest that the infusion of a little civility 
into the manner and conversation of some of the steam- 
boat officials on the quay at Greenock, would be very 
agreeable to passengers, and could not seriously injure 
those individuals themselves. 

What sort of men are the Glasgow merchants ? Why, 
courteous reader, there are great diversities among them. 
Almost all we have met give us an impression of shrewd- 
ness and strong sense ; some, of extraordinary tact and 
cleverness — though these last are by no means among 
the richest men. In some cases we found extremely 
unaffected and pleasing address, great information upon 
general topics — in short, all the characteristics of the 
cultivated gentleman. In others there certainly was a 
good deal of boorishness ; and in one or two instances, 
a tendency to the use of oaths which in this country hav6 
long been unknown in good society. The reputed wealth 
of some Glasgow men is enormous, though we think it 
not unlikely that there is a great deal of exaggeration 
as to that subject. We did, however, hear it said that 
one firm of iron merchants realized for some time profits 
to the extent of nearly four hundred thousand a-year. 
We were told of an individual who died worth a million, 
all the produce of his own industry and skill ; and one 
hears incidentally of such things as five-hundred-pound 
bracelets, thousand-guinea necklaces, and other appliances 
of extreme luxury, as not unknown among the fair dames 
of Glasgow. 

And so, in idle occupations, and in gleaning up par- 



260 CONCERNING GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER 

ticulars as to Glasgow matters according to our taste 
wherever we go, our sojourn upon the Frith of Clyde 
pleasantly passed away. We left our hospitable friends, 
not without a promise that when the Christmas holidays 
come we should visit them once more, and see what kind 
of thing is the town life of the winter time in that warm- 
hearted city. And meanwhile, as the days shorten to 
chill November, — as the clouds of London smoke drift 
by our windows, — as the Thames runs muddy through 
this mighty hum and bustle away to the solitudes of its 
last level, — we recall that cheerful time with a most 
agreeable recollection of the kindness of Glasgow friends, 
—and of all that is implied in Glasgow Down the Water, 




CHAPTER IX. 

CONCERNING MAN AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE 

[HEN my friend Smith's drag comes round 
to his door, as he and I are standing on the 
steps ready to go out for a drive, how 
cheerful and frisky the horses look ! I 
think I see them, as I saw them yesterday, coming round 
from the stable-yard, with their glossy coats and the sil- 
ver of their harness glancing in the May sunshine, the 
May sunshine mellowed somewhat by the green reflec- 
tion of two great leafy trees. They were going out for 
a journey of twenty miles. They were, in fact, about to 
begin their day's work, and they knew they were ; yet 
how buoyant and willing they looked ! There was not 
the faintest appearance of any disposition to shrink from 
their task, as if it were a hard and painful one. No ; 
they were eaarer to be at it ; they were manifestly enjoy- 
ing the anticipation of the brisk exertion in the midst of 
which they would be in five minutes longer. And by 
the time we have got into our places, and have wrapped 
those great fur robes comfortably about our limbs, the 
chafing animals have their heads given them ; and in- 
stantly they fling themselves at their collars, and can 
hardly be restrained from breaking into a furious gal- 



262 CONCERNING MAN 

lop. Happy creatures, you enjoy your work ; you wish 
nothing better than to get at it ! 

And when I have occasionally beheld a ploughman, 
bricklayer, gardener, weaver, or blacksmith, begin his 
work in the morning, I have envied him the readinesa 
and willingness with which he took to it. The plough- 
man, after he has got his horses harnessed to the plough, 
does not delay a minute : into the turf the shining share 
enters, and away go horses, plough and man. It costs 
the ploughman no effort to make up his mind to begin. 
He does not stand irresolute, as you and I in childish 
days have often done when taken down to the sea for 
our morning dip, and when trying to get courage to take 
the first plunge under water. And the bricklayer lifts 
and places the first brick of his daily task just as easily 
as the last one. The weaver, too, sits down without 
mental struggle at his loom, and sets off at once. How 
different is the case with most men whose work is men- 
tal ; more particularly how different is the case with most 
men whose work is to write — to spin out their thoughts 
into compositions for other people to read or to listen to ! 
How such men, for the most part, shrink from their 
work — put it off as long as may be ; and even when the 
paper is spread out and the pen all right, and the ink 
within easy reach, how they keep back from the final 
plunge ! And after they have begun to write, how they 
dally with their subject ; shrink back as long as possible 
from grappling with its difficulties ; twist about and about, 
talking of many irrelevant matters, before they can sum- 
mon up resolution to go at the real point they have got 
to write about ! How much unwillingness there is fairly 
to put the neck to the collar ! 

Such are my natural reflections, suggested by my per- 



AKD HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 263 

sonal feelings at this present time. I know perfectly 
well what I have got to do. I have to Avrite some ac- 
count, and attempt some appreciation, of a most original, 
acute, well-expressed, and altogether remarkable book — 
the book, to wit, which bears the comprehensive title 
of Man and his Dwelling-Place. It is a metaphysical 
6ook ; it is a startling book ; it is a very clever book ; and 
though it is published anonymously, I have heard sev- 
eral acquaintances say, with looks expressive of unheard- 
of stores of recondite knowledge, that they have reason 
to believe that it is written by this and that author, whose 
name is already well known to fame. It may be so, but 
I did not credit it a bit the more because thus assured of 
it. In most cases the people who go about dropping hints 
of how much they know on such subjects, know nothing 
earthly about the matter ; but still the premises (as law- 
yers would say) make it be felt that the book is a seri- 
ous one to meddle with. Not that in treating such a 
volume, plainly containing the careful and deliberate 
views and reflections of an able and well-informed man, 
I should venture to assume the dignified tone of superi- 
ority peculiar to some reviewers in dissecting works 
which they could not have written for their lives. There 
are not a score of men in Britain who would be justified 
in reviewins: such a book as this de haul en has. I in- 
tend the humbler task of giving my readers some de- 
Bcriplion of the work, stating its great principle, and 
arguing certain points with its eminently clever author ; 
and under the circumstances in which this article is 
written, it discards the dignified and undefined We, and 
adopts the easier and less authoritative first person sin- 
gular. The work to be done, therefore, is quite appar- 
ent : there is no doubt about that. But the writer is 



2G4 CONCERNING MAN 

most unwilling to begin it. Slowly was the pen taken 
up ; oftentimes was the window looked out of. I am 
well aware that I shall not settle steadily to my task till 
I shall have had a preliminary canter, so to speak. Thus 
Lave I seen school-boys, on a warm July day, about to 
jump from a sea-wall into the azure depths of ocean. 
But after their garments were laid aside, and all was 
ready for the plunge, long time sat they upon the tepid 
stones, and paddled with idle feet in the water. 

How shall I better have that preliminary and mod- 
erate exercitation which serves to get up the steam, 
than by talking for a little about the scene around me ? 
Through diamond-shaped panes the sunshine falls into 
this little chamber ; and going to the window you look 
down upon the tops of tall trees. And it is pleasant to 
look down upon the tops of tall trees. The usual way 
of looking at trees, it may be remarked, is from below. 
But this chamber is high up in the tower of a parish 
church far in the country. Its furniture is simple as that 
of the chamber of a certain prophet, who lived long ago. 
There are some things here, indeed, which he had not ; 
for yesterday's Times lies upon the floor drying in the 
morning sunbeams, and Fraser's Magazine for May is 
on a chair by the window. Why does that incompar- 
able monthly act blisteringly upon the writer's mind? 
It never did so till May, 1859. Why does he put it for 
the time out of sight ? Why, but because, for once, he 
has read in that Magazine an article — by a very emi- 
nent man, too — written in what he thinks a thoroughly 
mistaken spirit, and setting out views which he thinks to 
be utterly false and mischievous. Not such, the writer 
knows well, are the views of his dear friend the Editor 
not such are the doctrines which Fraser teaches to a 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 265 

grateful world. In the latter pages of his review of 3fill 
on Liberty, Mr. Buckle spoke solely for himself; he did 
not express the opinions -which this Magazine upholds, 
nor commit for one moment the staff of men who write in 
it ; and, as one insignificant individual who has penned a 
good many pages of Fraser, I beg to express my keen 
disapprobation of Mr. Buckle's -ttiews upon the subject 
of Christianity. They may be right, but I firmly believe 
they are wrong ; they may be true, but I think them 
false. I repudiate any share in them : let their author 
bear their responsibility for himself. Alas, say I, that 
so able a man should sincerely think (I give him credit 
for entire sincerity) that man's best refuge and most 
precious hope is vain delusion ! Very jarringly to my 
mind sound those eloquent periods, so inexpressibly sad 
and dreary, amid pages penned in many quiet parson- 
ages, by many- men who for the truth of Christianity 
would, God helping them, lay down their lives. So, you 
May magazine, get meanwhile out of sight : I don't want 
to think of you. Rather let me stay this impatient 
throbbing of heart by looking down on the green tops 
of those great silent trees. 

Thick ivy frames this mullioned window, wdth its three 
lance-shaped lights. Seventy feet below, the grassy 
graves of the churchyard swell like green waves. The 
white headstones gleam in the sun. Ancient oaks line 
the lichened wall of the churchyard : their leaves not 
yet so thick as they will be a month hereafter. Beyond 
the wall, I see a very verdant field, between two oaks ; six 
or seven white lambs are lying there, or frisking about. 
The silver gleam of a river bounds the field ; and beyond 
are thick hedges, -white with hawthorn blossoms. In the 
distance there is a great rocky hill, which bounds the 



266 CONCERNING MAN 

horizon. There is not a sound, save when a little flaw 
of air brushes a twig against the wall some feet below 
me. The smoke of two or three scattered cottages risea 
here and there. The skj is very bright blue, with many 
fleecy clouds. Quiet, quiet ! And all this while the 
omnibuses, cabs, carriages, drays, horses, men, are hur- 
rying, sweltering, and fretting along Cheapside ! 

3Ian and his Dwellmg-Place ! Truly a comprehen- 
sive subject. For man's dwelling-place is the universe ; 
and remembering this, it is plain that there is not much 
to be said which might not be said under that title. But, 
of course, there are sweeping views and opinions which 
include man and the universe, and which colour all beliefs 
as to details. And the author of this remarkable book has 
arrived at such a sweeping view. He holds, that where- 
as we fancy that we are living creatures, and that inani- 
mate nature is inert, or without life, the truth is just the 
opposite of this fancy. He holds that man wants life, 
and that his dwelling-place possesses life. We are dead, 
and the world is living. No doubt it would be easy to 
laugh at all this ; but I can promise the thoughtful reader 
that, though after reading the book he may still differ 
from its author, he will not laugh at him. Very moder- 
ately informed folk are quite aware of this — that the 
fact of any doctrine seeming startling at the first mention 
of it, is no argument whatever against its truth. Some 
centuries since you could hardly have startled men more 
Ihan by saying that the earth moves, and the sun stands 
still. Nay, it is not yet forty years since practical en- 
gineers judged George Stephenson mad, for saying that a 
Bteam-engine could draw a train of carriages along a rail- 
way at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. It is certain- 
ly a startling thing to be told that I am dead, and that 



AXD HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 267 

the: distant hill out there is living. The burden of proof 
rests with the man who propounds the theory ; the prima 
facie case is against him. Trees do not read newspa- 
pers ; hills do not write articles. We must try to fix the 
author's precise meaning when he speaks of life ; per- 
haps he may intend by it something quite different from 
that which we understand. And then we must see what 
he has to say in support of a doctrine which at the first 
glance seems nothing short of monstrous and absurd. 

No : I cannot get on. I cannot forget that May mag- 
azine that is lying in the corner. I must be thoroughly 
done with it before I can fix my thoughts upon the work 
which is to be considered. Mr. Buckle has done a ser- 
vice to my mind, entirely analogous to that which would 
be done to a locomotive engine by a man who should 
throw a handful of sand into its polished machinery. I 
am prepared, from personal experience, to meet with a 
flat contradiction his statement that a man does you no 
harm by trying to cast doubt and discredit upon the 
doctrines you hold most dear. Mr. Buckle, by his article, 
has done me an injury. It is an injury, irritating but 
not dangerous. For the large assertions, which if they 
stated truths, would show that the religion of Christ is a 
miserable delusion, are unsupported by a tittle of proof: 
and the general tone in regard to Christianity, tlioiigli 
sufficiently hostile, and very eloquently expressed, ap- 
pears to me uncommonly weak in logic. But as Mr. 
Buckle's views have been given to the world, with what- 
ever weight may be derived from their publication in 
this magazine, it is no more than just and necessary that 
through the same channel there should be conveyed an- 
other contributor's strong disavowal of them, and keen 



268 CONCERNING MAN 

protest against them. I do not intend to argue against 
Mr. Buckle's opinions. This is not the time or place for 
such an undertaking. And Mr. Buckle, in his article, 
has not argued but dogmatically asserted, and then called 
hard names at those who may conscientiously differ from 
liim. Let me suggest to Mr. Buckle that such names 
can v<)ry easily be retorted. Any man who would use 
them, very easily could. Mr. Buckle says that any man 
who would punish by legal means the publication of blas- 
phemous sentiments, should be regarded as a noxious 
animal. It is quite easy for me to say, and possibly to 
prove, that the man who advocates the free publication 
of blasphemous sentiments, is a noxious animal. So 
there we are placed on an equal footing ; and what prog- 
ress has been made in the argument of the question in 
debate? Then Mr. Buckle very strongly disapproves a 
certain judgment of, as I believe, one of the best judges 
who ever sat on the English Bench : I mean Mr. Justice 
Coleridge. That judge on one occasion sentenced to im- 
prisonment a poor, ignorant man, convicted of having 
written certain blasphemous words upon a gate. I am 
prepared to justify every step that was taken in the 
prosecution and punishment of that individual. That^ 
however, is not the point at issue. Even supposing that 
the magistrates who committed, and the judge who sen- 
tenced, that miserable wretch, had acted wrongly and 
unjustly, could not- Mr. Buckle suppose that they had 
acted conscientiously ? What right had he to speak of 
Sir. Justice Coleridge as a ' stony-hearted man ? ' What 
right had he to say that the judge and the magistrates, 
in doing what they honestly believed to be right, were 
* criminals,' who had ' committed a great crime ? ' What 
right had he to say that their motives were ' the pride of 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 269 

their power and the wickedness of their hearts ? ' What 
right had he to call one of the most admirable men in 
Britain ' this unjust and unrighteous judge ? And 
where did Mr. Buckle ever see anything to match the 
statement, that Mr. Justice Coleridge grasped at thp 
opportunity of persecuting a poor blasphemer in a remote" 
county, where his own wickedness was likely to be over 
looked, while he durst not have done as much in the fac 
of the London press ? Who will believe that Mr. Justip* 
Ctyleridge is distinguished for his ' cold heart and shallov 
understanding ? ' But I feel much more comfortable 
now, when I have written upon this page that I, as on^ 
humble contributor to this Magazine, utterly repudiate 
Mr. Buckle's sentiments with regard to Sir J. T. Cole- 
ridge, and heartily condemn the manner in which he has 
expressed them. 

If there be any question which ought to be debated 
with scrupulous calmness and fairness, it is the question 
whether it is just that human laws should prevent and 
puuksh the publication of views commonly regarded as 
blasphemous. I deny Mr. Buckle's statement, that all 
belief is involuntary. I say that in a country like this, 
every man of education is responsible for his religious 
belief; but of course responsible only to his Maker. 
Thus, on totally different grounds from Mr. Buckle, I 
agree with him in thinking that no human law should 
interfere with a man's belief. I am not prepared, with- 
out much longer thought than I have yet given to the 
subject, to agree with Mr. Buckle and Mr. Mill, that 
human law should never interfere with the publication of 
opinions, no matter how blasphemous they may be es- 
teemed by the great majority of the nation to which they 
are published. I might probably say that I should not 



1^70 CONCERNING MAN 

interfere with the publication of any book, however false 
and mischievous I might regard the religious doctrines it 
taught, provided the book were written in the interest of 
truth — provided its author manifestly desired to set out 
doctrines which he regarded as true and important. But 
ii the book set out blasphemous doctrine in such a tone 
a.nd temper as made it evident that the writer's main in- 
tention was to irritate and distress those who held the 
belief regarded as orthodox, I should probably suppress 
or punish the publication of such a book. Sincere infi- 
delity is a sad thing, with little of the propagandist spirit. 
Even if it should think that those Christian doctrines 
which afford so much comfort and support to men are 
fond delusions, I think its humane feeling would be, — 
Well, I shall not seek to shatter hopes which I cannot re- 
place. I know that such was the feeling of the most 
amiable of unbelievers — David Hume. I know how 
he regularly attended church, anxious that he might not 
by his example dash in humble minds the belief which 
tended to make them good and happy, though it was a 
belief which he could not share. My present notion is, 
that laws ought to punish coarse and abusive blasphemy. 
They may let thoughtful and philosophic scepticism alone. 
It will hardly reach, it will never distress, the masses. 
But if a blackguard goes up to a parsonage door, and 
bellows out- blasphemous remarks about the Trinity ; or 
if a man who is a blockhead as well as a malicious 
vrretch writes blasphemous words upon a parsonage gate, 
I cannot for an instant recognize in these men the cham- 
pions of freedom of religious thought and speech. Even 
Mr. Buckle cannot think that their purpose is to teach 
the clergymen important truth. They don't intend to 
proselytize. Their object is to insult and annoy and 



AND HIS DWE].LING-PLACE. 271 

shock. And I think it is right to punish them. They 
are not punished for setting out their peculiar opinions. 
They are punished for designedly and maliciously injur- 
ing their neighbours. Mr. Justice Coleridge punished 
the blasphemer in Cornwall, not because he held wrong 
views, not because he expressed wrong views. lie 
might have expressed them in a decent way as long as 
ho liked, and no one would have interfered with him. 
He was punished because, with malicious and insulting 
intention, he wrote blasphemous words where he thought 
they would cause pain and horror. He was punished 
for that : and rightly. Mr. Buckle seeks to excite sym- 
pathy for the man, by mixing up with the question 
whether or no his crime deserved punishment, the wholly 
distinct question, whether or no the man was so far sane 
as to deserve punishment for any crime whatever. These 
two questions have no connexion ; and it is unfair to 
mingle them. The question of the man's sanity or in- 
sanity was for the jury to decide. The jury decided that 
he was so sane as to be responsible. Mr. Buckle's real 
point is, that however sane the man might have been, it 
was wicked to punish him ; and I do not hesitate to say, 
for myself, that looking to the entire circumstances of 
the case, the magistrates who committed that nuisance of 
his neighbourhood, and the judge who sent him to jail, 
did no more than their duty. 

There are several statements made by Mr. Buckle 
which must not be regarded as setting forth the teaching 
ol'lhe Magazine m which they were made. Mr. Buckle 
says that no man can be sure that any doctrine is divinely 
revealed : that whoever says so must be * absurdly and 
immodestly confident in his own powers.' I deny that. 
Mr. Buckle says that it is part of Christian doctrine that 



272 CONCERNING MAN 

rich men cannot be saved. I deny that. Christ's state- 
ment as to the power of worldly possessions to concen- 
trate the affections upon this world, went not an inch 
further than daily experience goes. What said Samuel 
Johnson when Garrick showed him his grand house ? 
All, David, these are the things that make death terri- 
hi ! ' Mr. Buckle says that Christianity gained ground 
n early ages because its doctrines were combated. They 
were not combated. Its professors were persecuted, 
which is quite another thing. Mr. Buckle says that 
the doctrine of Immortality was known to the world 
before Christianity was heard of, or any other revealed 
religion. I deny that. Greek and Roman philosophers 
of the highest class regarded that doctrine as a delusion 
of the vulgar. Did Mr. Buckle ever read the letter cf 
condolence which Sulpicius wrote to Cicero after the 
death of Cicero's daughter? A beautiful letter, beauti- 
fully expressed ; stating many flimsy and wretched rea- 
sons for drying one's tears ; but containing not a hint of 
any hope of meeting in another world. And the same 
may be said of Cicero's reply. As for Mr. Buckle's ar- 
gument for Immortality, I think it extremely weak and 
inconclusive. It certainly goes to prove, if it proves any- 
thing, that my cousin Tom, who lately was called to the 
bar, is quite sure to be Lord Chancellor ; and that Sam 
Lloyd, who went up from our village last week to a mer- 
chant's counting-house in Liverpool, is safe to rival his 
eminent namesake in wealth. Mr. Buckle's argument is 
just this: that if your heart is very much set upon a 
thing, you are perfectly sure to get it. Of course every- 
body has read the soliloquy in Addison's Cato, where 
Mr. Buckle's argument is set forth. I deem it not worth 
a rush. Does any man's experience of this life tend to 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 273 

assure him, that because some people (and not all people) 
would like to see their friends again after they die, there- 
fore thej shall ? Do things usually turn out just as we 
particularly wish that they should turn out ? Has not 
many a young girl felt, like Cato, a ' secret dread and in- 
ward horror ' lest the pic-nic day should be rainy ? Did 
that ensure its being fine ? Was not I extremely anxious 
to catch the express train yesterday, and did not I miss 
it ? Does not every child of ten years old know, that 
this is a world in which things have a wonderful kna(;k 
of falling out just in the way least wished for ? If I 
were an infidel, I should believe that some spiteful imp 
of the perverse had the guidance of the affairs of hu- 
manity. I know better than that : but for my knowl 
edge I have to thank Revelation. But is it philosophi- 
cal, is it common sense, in a man who rejects Revelation, 
and who must be guided in his opinions of a future life 
by the analogy of the present, to argue that because here 
the issue all but constantly defeats our wishes and hopes, 
therefore an end on which (as he says) human hearts are 
very much set shall certainly be attained hereafter ? ' If 
the separation were final,' says Mr. Buckle, in a most 
eloquent and pathetic passage, ' how could we stand up 
and live ? ' Fine feeling, indeed, but impotent logic. 
When a man has worked hard and accumulated a little 
competence, and then in age loses it all in some swindling 
bank, and sees his daughters, tenderly reared, reduced to 
starvation, I doubt not he may think ' How can I live ? * 
but will all this give him his fortune back again ? Has 
not many a youthful heart, crushed down by bitter dis- 
appointment, taken up the fancy that surely life would 
now be impossible ; but did the fancy, by the weight of 
a feather, affect the fact? I remember, indeed, seeing 
18 



274 CONCERNING MAN 

Mr. Buckle's question put with a wider reach of raean* 
ing. Poor Uncle Tom, torn from his family, is sailing 
down the Mississippi, and finding comfort as he reads his 
well-worn Bible. How^ could that poor negro weigh the 
arguments on either side, and be sure that the blessed 
Faith, which was then his only support, was true ? With 
better logic than Mr. Buckle's, he drew his best evidence 
from his own consciousness. ' It fitted him so well : it 
was so exactly what he needed. It must be true, or how 
could he live ? ' . 

Having written all this, I feel that I can now think 
without distraction of Man and his DwelUng-Place. I 
have mildly vented my indignation ; and I now, in a mor- 
al sense, extend my hand to Mr. Buckle. Had he come 
up that corkscrew stair an hour or two ago, I am not en- 
tirely certain that I might not have taken him by the 
collar and shaken him. And had I found him standing 
on a chair in the green behind the church, and indoctri- 
nating my simple parishioners with his peculiar notions, 
I have an entire conviction that I should have forgotten 
my theoretical assent to the doctrine of religious tolera- 
tion, and by a gentle hint to my sturdy friends, procured 
him an invigorating bath in that gleaming river. I have 
got rid of that feeling now. And although Mr. Buckle 
is the last man who would find fault with any honest op- 
position, I yet desire to express my regret if I have writ- 
ten any word that passes the limit of goodnatured though 
sturdy conflict. I respect Mr. Buckle's earnestness and 
moral courage : I heartily admire his eloquence : I give 
him credit for entire sincerity in the opinions he holds, 
though I think them sadly mistaken. 

So now for Man and his Dwelling-Place. Twice al- 
ready has the writer put his mind at that book, but it 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 275 

has each time swerved, like a middling hunter from a 
very stiff fence, and taken a circle round the field. Now 
at last the thing must really be done. 

If you, my reader, are desirous of discovering a book 
which shall entirely knock up your previous views upon 
all possible subjects, read this Essay Towards the Inter- 
prctation of Nature. It does, indeed, interpret Nature, 
and Man too, in a fashion which, to the best of my 
knowledge, is thoroughly original. And the book is dis 
tinguished not more by originality than by piety, ear- 
nestness, and eloquence. Its author is an enthusiastic 
Christian ; and indeed his peculiar views in metaphysics 
and Science are founded upon his interpretation of cer- 
tain passages in the New Testament. It is from the 
sacred volume that he derives his theory that man is at 
present dead. The work appears likely to appeal to a 
limited circle of readers ; it will be understood and appre- 
ciated by few. Though its style is clear, the abstruse- 
ness of the subjects discussed and the transcendental 
scope of its author, make the train of thought often dif- 
ficult to follow. Possibly the fault is not in the book, 
but in the reader : possibly it may result from the book 
having been read rapidly and while pressed by many 
other concerns ; but there seems to me a certain want 
of clearness and sharpness of presentment about it. The 
great principle maintained is indeed set forth with un- 
mistakable force ; but, it is hard to say how, there ap- 
pears in details a certain absence of method, and what in 
Scotland is called a drumliness of style. There is a 
good deal of repetition too ; but for that one is rather 
thankful than otherwise ; for the great idea of the dead- 
Tiess of man and the life and spirituality of nature grows 
♦iiu'jh better defined, and is grasped more completely and 



276 CONCERNING MAN 

intelligentlj, as we come upon it over and over again, 
put in many different ways and with great variety of 
illustration. It is a humiliating confession for a re- 
viewer to make, but, to say the truth, I do not know 
what to make of this book. If its author should succeed 
in indoctrinating the race with his views, he will pro- 
duce an intellectual revolution. Every man who thinks 
at all will be constrained for the remainder of his days 
(I must not say of his life) to think upon all subjects 
quite differently from what he has ever hitherto thought. 
As for readers for amusement, and for all readers who do 
not choose to read what cannot be read without some 
mental effort, they will certainly find the first half-dozen 
pages of this work quite sufficient for them. Without 
pretending to follow the author's views into the vast 
number of details into which they reach, I shall endeav- 
our in a short compass to draw the great lines of them. 

There is an interesting introduction, which gradually 
prepares us for the announcement of the startling fact, 
that all men hitherto have been entirely mistaken in 
their belief both as to themselves and the universe 
which surrounds them. It is first impressed upon us 
that things may be in themselves very different indeed 
from that which they appear to us : that phenomenon 
may be something far apart from actual being. Yet 
though our conceptions, whether given by sense or intel- 
lect, do not correspond with the truth of things, still they 
are the elements from which truth is to be gathered 
The following passage, which occurs near the beginning 
of the introduction, is the sharp end of the wedge : — 

All advance in knowledge is a deliverance of man from himself. 
Slowly and painfully we learn that he is not the measure of truth, that 
the fact may be verj' different from the appearance to him The lea- 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 277 

son is ha* ^, but the reAvard is great. So he escapes from illusion and 
error, from ignorance and failure. Directing his thoughts and ener- 
gies no longer according to his own impressions, but according to the 
truth of things, he finds himself in possession of an unimaginable 
power alike of understanding and of acting. To a truly marvellous 
extent he is the lord of nature. 

But the conditions of this lordship are inexorable. They are the 
Burrender of prepossessions, the abandonment of assumption, the con- 
fession of ignorance: the open eye and the humble heart. Hence ir 
all passing from error to truth we learn something respecting ourselves 
as well as something respecting the object of our study. Simultane 
ously with our better knowledge we recognize the reason of our igno 
ranee, and perceive what defect on our part has caused us to thini 
wrongly. 

Either the world is such as it appears to us, or it is not. If it be 
not, there must be some condition affecting ourselves which modifies 
the impression we receive from it. And thife condition must be opera- 
tive upon all mankind: it must relate to man as a whole rather than 
to individual men. 

Thus does tlie author lay down the simple general 
principle from which he is speedily to draw conclusions so 
startling. Nothing can be more innocuous than all this. 
Every one must agree in it. Now come the further steps. 

The study of nature leads to the conclusion that there 
is a defectiveness in man w^hich modifies his perception 
of all external things ; and that thus in so far as the act- 
ual fact of the universe differs from our impression of it, 
the actual fact is better, higher, more complete, than our 
impression of it. There are qualities, there is a glory 
about the universe, which our defective condition pre- 
vents our seeing or discerning. The universe, or nature, 
is not in itself such as it is to man's feeling ; and man's 
feeling of it differs from the fact hy defect. All that we 
discern in the universe is there : and a great deal besides. 

Now, we think of nature as existing in a certain way 
?vhich we q?^ physical. We call the world the physical 
world. This mode of existence involves inertness. That 



278 CONCERNLNG MAN 

which is physical does not act, except passively, as it is 
acted upon. Inertness is inaction. That which is inert 
therefore, differs from that which is not inert by defect. 
The inert wants something of being active. 

Next, we have a conception of another mode of being 
besides the inert. We conceive of being which possesses 
u spontaneous and primary activity. This liind of being 
is called spiritual. This kind of being has shaken off 
the reproach of inertness. It can act, and originate ac- 
tion. The physical thus differs from the spiritual (as 
regards inertness) by defect. The physical wants some- 
thing of being spiritual. 

• 

So far, my reader, we do not of necessity start back 
from anything our author teaches us. Quite true, we 
think of matter, a kind of being which can do nothing of 
itself. Quite true, we think of spirit, a kind of being 
which can do. And no d'^^jbt that which is able to do is 
((quoad hoc) a higher and more noble kind of being than 
that which cannot do, but only be done to. But remem- 
ber here, I do not admit that in this point lies the differ- 
entia between matter and spirit. I do not grant that by 
taking from matter the reproach of inertness, you would 
make it spirit. The essential difference seems to me not 
to lie there. We could conceive of matter as capable of 
originating action, and yet as material. This is by the 
bye — but now be on your guard. Here is our author's 
great discovery — 

It is man^s defectiveness which makes him feel the world 
as thus defective. Nature is really not inert, though it 
appears so to man. We have been wont to think that 
nature, the universe, is inert or physical ; that man is 
not-inert, or spiritual. Now, there is no doubt at all 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 279 

that there is inertness somewhere. Here are the two 
things, Man and Nature ; with which thing does the in- 
ertness He ? Our author maintains tliat it hes with man, 
not with nature. Science has proved to us that nature is 
not-inert. As there is inertness somewhere, and as it is 
not m nature, of course the conclusion is that it is in 
man. Inertness is in the phenomenon ; that is, in nature 
as it appears to us. There cannot be any question that 
nature seems to us to be inert. But the author of this 
book declares that this inertness, though in the phenom- 
enon, is not in the fact. Nature looks inert; it is 
not-inert. How does the notion of inertness come at all, 
then ? Now comes the very essence of the new theory ; 
I give it in its author's words : — 

The inertness is introduced by man. He perceives defect without 
him, only because there is defect within him. 

To be inert has the same meaning as to be dead. So we speak of 
nature, thinking it to be inert, as ' dead matter.' To say that man 
introduces inertness into nature implies a deadness in him : it is to say 
that he wants life. This is the proposition which is affirmed. This 
condition which we call our life, is not the true life of man. 

The Book that has had greater influence upon the world than all 
others, differs from all others, in affirming that man wants life, and 
in making that statement the basis of all that it contains respecting 
the past and present and future of mankind. 

Science thus pays homage to the Bible. What that book has de- 
clared as if with authority, so long ago, she has at last decyphered on 
the page of nature. This is not man's true life. 

And w^ho is there who can doubt, looking at man as 
he is now, and then thinking of what he is to be in an- 
other world, that there is about him, now, great defect ? 
There is truly much w^anting which it is hoped will one 
day be supplied. What shall we call this lacking thing 
■ — this one thing lacking whose absence is felt in ev3ry 
'ibre of our being ? Our author chooses to call it life ; 



280 CONCERNING MAN. 

I am doubtful with how much felicity or naturalness ot 
expression. Of course we all know that in the New 
Testament life does not mean merely existence con- 
tinued; eternal life does not mean merely existence 
coLtinued for ever : it means the highest and purest form 
of our being continued for ever ; — happiness and holi- 
ness continued for ever. We know, too, that holy Scrip- 
ture describes the step taken by any man in becoming 
an earnest believer in Christ, as ' passing from death to 
life ; ' we remember such a text as * This is life eternal, 
that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom Thou hast sent.' We know that a general 
name for the Gospel, which grasps its grand character- 
istics, is ' The Word of Life ; ' and that, in religious 
phrase, Christianity is concerned with the revealing, 
the implanting, the sustaining, the crowning, of a certain 
better life. Nor is it difficult to trace out such analogies 
between natural and spiritual death, between natural and 
spiritual hfe, as tend to prove that spiritual life and 
death are not spoken of in Scripture merely as the 
strongest words which could be employed, but that there 
is a further and deeper meaning in their constant use. 
But I do not see any gain in forcing figurative language 
into a literal use. Everybody knows what life and death, 
in ordinary language, imply. Life means sensibility, 
consciousness, capacity of acting, union with the living. 
Death means senselessness, helplessness, separation. No 
doubt we may trace analogies, very close and real, be- 
tween the natural and the spiritual life and death. But 
etill they are no more than analogies. You do not iden- 
tify the physical with the spiritual. And it is felt by all 
that the use of the Avords in a spiritual sense is a figura- 
tive use. To the common understanding, a man is liv- 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 281 

ing, when he breathes and feels and moves. He is dead 
when he ceases to do all that. And it is a mere twisting 
of words from their understood sense to say that in 
reality, and without a figure, a breathing, feeling, moving 
man is dead^ because he lacks some spiritual quality, 
however great its value may be. It may be a very val- 
uable quality ; it may be worth more than life ; but it is 
not life, as men understand it ; and as words have no 
meaning at all except that which men agree to give thes« 
arbitrary sounds, it matters not at all that this highei 
quality is what you may call true life, better life, real 
life. If you enlarge the meaning of the word life to 
include, in addition to what is generally understood by 
it, a higher power of spiritual action and discernment, 
why, all that can be said is, that you understand by life 
something quite different from men in general. If I 
choose to enlarge the meaning of the word black to in- 
clude white, of course I might say with truth (relatively 
to myself) that white forms the usual clothing of clergy- 
men. If I extend the meaning of the word fast to in- 
clude slow, I might boldly declare that the Great North- 
ern express is a slow train. And the entire result of 
such use of language would be, that no mortal w^ould un 
derstand what I meant. 

Thus it is that I demur to any author's right to tell 
me that such and such a thing is, or is not, ' the true life 
of man.' And when he says ' that man wants life, means 
that the true life of man is of another kind from this,* 
I reply to him, Tell me what is the blessing man needs ; 
Tell me, above all, where and how he is to get it : but as 
to its name, I really do not care what you call it, so you 
call it by some name that people will understand. Call 
it so that people will know w^hat you mean — Salvation, 



282 CONCERNING MAN 

Glory, Happiness, Holiness, Redemption, or what else 
you please. Do not mystify us by saying we want lifey 
and then, when we are startled by the perfectly intelli- 
gible assertion, edge off by explaining that by life you 
mean something quite different from what we do. There 
is no good in that. If I were to declare that this even- 
ing, before I sleep, I shall cross the Atlantic and go to 
America, my readers would think the statement a suffi- 
ciently extraordinary one ; but if, after thus surprising 
them, I went on to explain that by the Atlantic I did 
not mean the ocean, nor by America the western conti- 
nent, but that the Atlantic meant the village green, and 
America the squire's house on the other side of it, I 
should justly gain credit for a very silly mystification. 
As Nicholas Nickleby very justly remarked, If Dothe- 
boy's Hall is not a hall, why call it one ? Mr. Squeers, 
in his reply, no doubt stated the law of the case : If a 
man chooses to call his house an island, what is to hinder 
him? If the author of Man and his Dwelling-Place 
means to tell us only that we want some spiritual capac- 
ity, which it pleases him to call life, but which not one 
man in a million understands by that word, is he not 
amusing himself at our expense by telling us we want 
life ? We know what we mean by being dead : our 
author means something quite different. Let him speak 
for himself: 

That man wants life means that the true life of man is of another 
kind from this. It corresponds to that true, absolute Being which he 
as he now is cannot know. 

He cannot know it because he is out of relation with it. This is his 
PEADNESS. To know it is to have life. 

Yes, reader — this is his deadness ! Something, that 
Ifl, which no plain mortal would ever understand by the 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 283 

word. When I told you, a long time ago, that this 
book taught that man is dead and nature living, was this 
what the words conveyed to you ? 

Still, though there may be something not natural in 
the word, the author's meaning is a broad and explicit 
one. For the want of that which he calls our true life 
(ho maintains) utterly distorts and deforms this world to 
our view. Here is his statement as to the things which 
surround us : 

There is not a physical world and a spiritual world hesides ; but the 
Bp;ritual world which alone is is physical to man, the physical being the 
mode in which man, by his defectiveness, perceives the spiritual. We 
feel a physical world to be: that which is is the spiritual world. 

The phenomenon, that is, is physical : the fact is spirit- 
ual. A tree looks to us material, because we want life : 
if we had life, we should see that it is spiritual. Really, 
there is no such thing as matter. Our own defective- 
ness makes us fancy that to be material which in truth is 
spiritual. So 1 was misinterpreting the author, when I 
said that all that we see in nature is there, and a great 
deal more. The defect in us, it appears, not only sub- 
tracts from nature, it transforms it. Not merely do we 
fail to discern that which is in nature, we do actually 
discern that which is not in nature. 

And to be delivered from all this deadness and delu- 
sion, what we have to do is to betake ourselves to the 
Saviour. Christianity is a system which starts from 
the fundamental principle that man is dead, and proposes 
to make him alive. Under its working man gains true 
life, otherwise called eternal life ; and in gaining that 
life he finds himself ipso facto conveyed into a spiritual 
world. This world ceases to be physical to him, and be- 
comes spiritual. 



284 CONCERNING MAN 

Such are the great lines of the new theory as to Man 
and his Dwelling-Place. Thus does our author inter- 
pret Nature. I trust and beheve that I have not in any 
way misrepresented or caricatured his opinions. His 
Introduction sets out in outline the purport of the entire 
book. The remainder of the \olume is given to carry- 
ing out these opinions into detail, as they are suggested 
by or as they affect the entire system of things. It is 
divided into four Books. Book I. treats Of Science ; 
Book II. Of Philosophy ; Book III. Of Religion ; Book 
IV. Of Ethics ; and the volume is closed by four Dia- 
logues between the Writer and Reader, in which, in a des- 
ultory manner, the principles already set forth are fur- 
ther explained and enforced. 

Early in the first chapter of the Book Of Science, the 
author anticipates the obvious objection to his use of the 
terms Life and Death. I do not think he succeeds in 
justifying the fashion in which he employs them. But 
let him speak for himself : 

It may seem unnatural to speak of a conscious existence as a state 
of death. But "what is affirmed is, that a sensational existence such as 
ours is not the life of man ; that a consciousness of physical life does 
itself imply a deadness. The affirmations that we are living men, and 
that man has not true and absolute life, are not opposed. Life is a 
relative term. Our possession of a conscious life in relation to the 
things that we feel around us, is itself the evidence of man's defect of life 
in a higher and truer sense. 

Let a similitude make the thought more clear. Are not we, as indi- 
viduals, at rest, steadfast in space; evidently so to our own conscious- 
ness, demonstrably so in relation to the objects around us? But is 
man at rest in space ? By no means. "We are all partakers of a mo- 
tion. Na}', if we were truly at rest, we could not have this relative 
steadfastness, we should not be at rest to the things around us : they 
would fleet and slip away. Our relative rest, and consciousness of 
steadfastness, depend upon our being not at rest. There are moving 
things, to which he only can be steadfast who is moving too. Even 
•uch is the life of which we have consciousness. We have a life ia 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 285 

relation to these physical things, because man wants life. True life in 
man would alter his relation to them. They could not be the realities 
any more : he could not have a life in them. As rest to moving things 
is not truly rest, but motion ; so life to inert things is not truly life, but 
deadness. 

Very ingeniously thought out : very skilfully put, with 
probably the only illustration which would go on all 
fours. But to me all this is extremely unsatisfactory : 
and unsatisfactory in a much farther sense than merely 
that it is using terms in a non-natural sense. I know, of 
course, that to look at Nature through blue spectacles 
will make Nature blue : but I cannot see that to look at 
Nature through dead eyes should make Nature dead. I 
see no proof that Nature, in fact, is living and active, 
though it admittedly looks inert and dead. And I can 
discover nothing more than a daring assertion, in the 
statement that we are dead, and that we project our 
own deadness upon living nature. I cannot see how to 
the purest and most elevated of beings, a tree should 
look less solid than it does to me. I cannot discover 
how greater purity of heart, and more entire faith in 
Christ, should turn this material world into a world of 
spirit. I doubt the doctrine that spin, in itself, as usual- 
ly understood (apart from its power of originating action) 
is a higher and holier existence than matter. It seems 
to me that very much from a wrong idea that it is, come 
those vague, unreal, intangible notions as to the Christian 
Heaven, which do so much to make it a chilly, unattrac 
tive thing, to human wishes and hopes. It is hard enough 
for us to feel the reality of the things beyond the grave, 
without having the additional stumbling-block cast in our 
way, of being told that truly there is nothing real there 
for us to feel. As for the following eloquent passage, in 
A'hich our author subsequently returns to the justification 



286 CONCERNING MAN 

of his great doctrine, no more need be said than that it ig 
rhetoric, not logic : — 

That man has not his true life, must have taken him long to learn. 
All our prepossessions, all our natural convictions, are opposed to that 
belief. If these activities, these powers, these capacities of enjoyment 
and suffering, this consciousness of free will, this command of tho 
matorial world, be not life, what is life ? Wliat more do we want to 
make us truly man ? This is the feeling that has held men captive, 
and biased all their thoughts so that they could not perceive what they 
themselves were saying. 

Yet the sad undercurrent has belied the boast. From all ages and 
all lands the cry of anguish, the prayer for life unconscious of itself, 
has gone up to heaven. In groans and curses, in despair and cruel 
rage, man pours out his secret to the universe; writing it in blood, and 
lust, and savage wrong, upon the fair bosom of the earth ; he alone 
not knowing what he does. If this be the life of man, what is his 
death ? 

No doubt this would form a very eloquent and effec- 
tive paragraph in a popular sermon. But in a philoso- 
phic treatise, where an author is tied to the severely pre- 
cise use of terms, and where it will not do to call a thing 
death merely because it is very bad, nor to call a thing 
life merely because it is Y^rj good, the argument appears 
to have but little weight. 

You must see, inteJligent reader, that one thing which 
we are entitled to require our author to satisfactorily 
prove, is the fact that Nature is not inert, as it appears 
to man. If you can make it certain that Nature is liv- 
ing and active, then, no doubt, some explanation will be 
needful as to how it comes to look so different to us; 
though, ev^n then, I do not see that it necessarily fol- 
lows that the inertness is to be supposed to exist in our- 
selves. But unless the author can prove that Nature is 
not inert, he has no foundation to build on. He states 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 287 

three arguments, from which he derives the grand prin- 
ciple : — 

1. Inertness necessarily belongs to all phenomena. That which is 
onlyfeltto be, and does not truly or absolutely exist, must have the 
character of inaction. It must be felt as passive A phenomenon 
must be inert because it is a phenomenon. We cannot argue from inert- 
ness in that which appears to us, to inertness in that which is. Of 
whatsoever kind the essence of natui-e may be, if it be unknown^ th» 
phenomenon must be equally inert. We have no ground, therefore, Ib 
the inertness which we feel, for affirming of nature that it is inert. 
We must feel it so, by virtue of our known relation to it, as not per- 
ceiving its essence. 

2. The question, therefore, rests entirely upon its own evidence. 
Since we have no reason, from the inertness of the phenomenal, for 
inferring the inertness of the essential, can we know whether that es- 
sential be inert or not? We can know. Inertness, as being absolute 
inaction, cannot belong to that which truly is. Being and absolute 
inaction are contraries. Inertness, therefore, must be a property by 
which the phenomenal differs from the essential or absolute. 

3. Again, nature does act : it acts upon us, or we could not perceive 
it at all. The true being of nature is active therefore. That we feel 
it otherwise shows that we do not feel it as it is. We must look for 
the source of nature's apparent or felt inertness in man's condition. 
Never should man have thought to judge of nature without remem- 
bering his own defectiveness. 

Such are the grounds upon which rests the belief, that 
nature is not inert. It appears to me that there is little 
force in them. To a great extent they are mere as- 
sumptions and assertions ; and anything they contain in 
the nature of argument is easily answered. 

First : Why must every phenomenon be felt as inert? 
Why must a ' phenomenon be inert because it is a phe- 
nomenon ? ' I cannot see why. We know nothing but 
phenomena ; that is, things as they appear to us. Where 
did we get the ideas of life and activity, if not from phe- 
nomena ? Many things appear to us to have life and 
activity. That is, there are phenomena which are not 
inert. 



288 CONCERNING MAN 

Secondly : Wherefore should we conclude that the 
phenomenon differs essentially from the fact ? The phe- 
nomenon is the fact-as-discerned-bj-us. And granting 
that our defectiveness forbids our having a full and com- 
plete discernment of the fact, why should we doubt that 
our discernment is right so far as it goes ? It is incom- 
parably more likely that things (not individual things, 
but the entire system, I mean) are what they seem, than 
that they are not. Why believe that we are gratuitously 
and needlessly deluded ? God made the universe ; he 
placed us in it; he gave us powers whereby to discern 
It. Is it reasonable to think that he did so in a fashion 
so blundering or so deceitful that we can only discern it 
wrong ? And if nature seems inert, is not the rational 
conclusion that it is so ? 

Thirdly : Why cannot ' inertness, as being absolute 
inaction, belong to that which truly is?' Why cannot 
a thing exist without doing anything? Is not that just 
what millions of things actually do ? Or if you intend 
to twist the meaning of the substantive verb, and to 
say that merely to be is to do something, — that simply 
to exist is a certain form of exertion and action, — I 
shall grant, of course, that nothing whatever that exists 
is in that sense inert; but I shall affirm that you use 
the W'ord inert in quite a different sense from the usual 
one. And in that extreme and non-natural sense of the 
WQrd, the phenomenon is no more inert than is the 
essence. Certainly things seem to us to be : and if just 
<o be is to be active, then no phenomenon is inert ; no 
single thing discerned by us appears to be inert. 

Fourthly : I grant that ' nature does act upon us, or 
we could not perceive it at all.' But then I maintain that 
this kind of action is not action as men understand the 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 289 

word. This kind of action is quite consistent with the 
general notion of inertness. A thing may be inert, as 
mankind understand the word ; and also active, as the 
author of this book understands the word. To discern 
this sort of activity and life in nature we have no need 
to ' pass from death to life ' ourselves. We simply need 
to have the thing pointed out to us, and it is seen at 
once. It is playing with words to say that nature acts 
upon us, or we could not perceive it. No doubt, when 
you stand before a tree, and look at it, it does act in so 
far as that it depicts itself upon your retina; but that action 
is quite consistent with what we understand by inertness. 
It does not matter whether you say that your eye takes 
hold of the tree, or that the tree takes hold of your eye. 
When 3^ou hook a trout, you may say either that you 
catch the fish, or that the fish catches you. Is the alter- 
native worth fighting about ? Which is the natural way 
of speaking : to say that the man sees the tree, or that the 
tree shows itself to the man ? All the activity which our 
author claims for nature goes no farther than that. Our 
reply is that that is not activity at all. If that is all he 
contends for, we grant it at once ; and we say that it ia 
not in the faintest degree inconsistent with the fact of 
nature's being inert, as that word is understood. You 
come and tell me that Mr. Smith has just passed youi 
window fiying, I say no ; I saw him ; he was not flying, 
but walking. Ah, you reply, I hold that walking is an 
inclioate flying; it is a rudimentary flying, the lowest 
form of flying ; and therefore I maintain that he flew 
past the window. My friend, I answer, if it be any sat- 
isfaction to you to use words in that way, do so and re- 
joice ; only do not expect any human being to understand 
what you mean ; and beware of the lunatic asylum. 
19 



290 CONCERNING MAN 

Why, I ask again, are we to cry down man for the 
Bake of crying up nature ? Why are we to depreciate 
the dweller that we may magnify the dwelling-place ? Is 
not man (to say the least) one of the works of God? 
Did not God make both man and nature ? And does 
not Revelation (which our author holds in so deep rever- 
ence) teach that man was the last and noblest of the 
handiworks of the Creator ? And thus it is that I do 
not hesitate to answer such a question as that which 
follows, and to answer it contrariwise to what the author 
expects. It is from the human soul that glory and mean- 
ing are projected upon inanimate nature. To Newton, 
and to Newton's dog, the outward creation was physically 
the same ; to the apprehension of Newton and of New- 
ton's dog, how different ! Hear the author : — 

To this clear issue the case is brought : Man does introduce into na- 
ture something from himself: either the inertness, the negative quality, 
the defect, or the beauty, the meaning, the glory. Either that where- 
by the world is noble comes from ourselves, or that whereby it is 
mean ; that which it has, or that which it wants. Can it be doubtful 
which it is ? 

Not in the least ! Give me the rational and immortal 
man, made in God's image, rather than the grandest oak 
which the June sunbeams will be warming when you 
read this, my friend — rather than the most majestic 
mountain which by and bye will be purple with the 
heather. Reason, immortality, love, and faith, are things 
liker God than ever so many cubic feet of granite, than 
ever so many loads of timber. ' Behold,' says Archer 
Butfer, ' we stand alone in the universe ! Earth, air 
and ocean can show us nothing so awful as we ! ' 

Tou fancy, says our author, that Nature is inert, be- 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 291 

cause it goes on in so constant and unvarying a course. 
You know, says he, what conscious exertion it costs you 
to produce physical changes ; you can trace no such 
exertion in Nature. You would believe, says he, that 
Nature is active, but for the fact that her doings are all 
conformed to laws that you can trace. But invariable- 
ness, he maintains, is no proof of inaction. Right Ac- 
tion is invariable; Right Action is absolutely con- 
formed to law. Why, therefore, should not the secret 
of nature's invariableness be, not passiveness, but Tight- 
ness ? ' The unchanging uniformity of Nature's course 
proves her holiness — her willing, unvarying obedience 
to the Divine law. * The invariableness of Nature be- 
speaks Hohness as its cause.' 

May we not think upon all this (not dogmatically) in 
some such fashion as this ? 

Which is likelier : 

1. That Nature has it in her power to vary from the 
well-known laws of Nature ; that she could disobey. God 
if she pleased ; but that she is so holy that she could not 
think of such a thing, and so through all ages has never 
swerved once. Or, 

2. That Nature is bound by laws which she has not 
the power to disobey ; that she is what she looks, an in- 
animate, passive, inert thing, actuated, as her soul and 
will, by the will of the Creator ? 

And to aid in considering which alternative is the 
likelier, let it be remembered that Revelation teachep 
that this is a fallen world ; that experience proves that 
this world is not managed upon any system of optimism ; 
that in this creation things are constantly going wrong ; 
and especially, that all history gives no account of any 
mere creature whose will was free to do either grood or 



292 CONCERNmG MAN 

ill; and yet who did not do ill frequently. Is it likvily 
that to all this there is one entire exception ; one thing 
and that so large a thing as all inanimate nature, per- 
fectly obedient, perfectly holy, perfectly right — and all 
by its own free will ? I grant there is something touch- 
ing in the author's eloquent words : - — 

Because she is right, Nature is ours : more truly ours than we our- 
selves. We turn from the inward ruin to the outward gloiy, and 
marvel at the contrast. But we need not marvel: it is the difference 
of life and death: piercing the dimness even of man's darkened sense, 
jarring upon his fond illusion like waking realities upon a dream. 
Without is living holiness, within is deathly wrong. 

Let the reader, ever remembering that in such cases 
analogy is not argument but illustration — that it makes 
a doctrine clearer, but does not in any degree confirm it 
— read the chapter entitled ' Of the illustration from 
Astronomy.' It will tend to make the great doctrine of 
Man and his Dwelling-Place comprehensible ; you will 
see exactly what it is, although you may not think it 
true. As astronomy has transferred the apparent move- 
ments of the planets from them to ourselves, so, says our 
author, has science transferred the seeming inertness of 
Nature from it to us. The phenomenon of Nature is 
physical and inert : the being is spiritual and active and 
holy. And if we now seem to have an insuperable con- 
viction that Man is not inert and that Nature is inert, it 
is not stronger than our apparent consciousness that the 
earth is unmoving. Man lives under illusion as to him- 
Belf and as to the universe. Reason, indeed, furnishes 
him with the means of correcting that illusion ; but in 
that illusion is his want of life. 

Strong in his conviction of the grand principle which 
he has established, as he conceives, in his first book, the 



ANB HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 293 

author, in his second book, goes crashing through all 
systems of philosophy. His great doctrine makes havock 
of them all. All are wrong ; though each may have 
some grain of truth in it. The Idealists are right in so 
far as that there is no such thing as Matter. Matter is 
the vain imagination of man through his wrong idea of 
Nature's inertness. But the Idealists are wrong if they 
fancy that because there is no Matter, there is nothing 
but Mind, and ideas in Mind. Nature, though spiritual, 
has a most real and separate existence. Then the scep- 
tics are right in so far as they doubt what our author 
thjiks wrong ; but they are wrong in so far as they doubt 
what our author thinks right. Positivism is right in so far 
as it teaches that we see all things relatively to ourselves, 
and so wrongly ; but it is wrong in teaching that what 
things are in themselves is no concern of ours, and that 
we should live on as though things were what they seem. 

If it were not that the reader of Man and his Dwelling- 
Place is likely, after the shock of the first grand theory, 
that Man is dead and the Universe living, to receive 
with comparative coolness any further views set out in 
the book, however strange, I should say that probably, 
the third Book, ' Of Religion,' would startle him more 
than anything else in the work. Although this Book 
stands third in the volume, it is first both in importance 
and in chronology. For the author tells us that his 
views Of Religion are not deduced from the theoretical 
conceptions already stated, but have been drawn imme- 
diately from the study of Scripture, and that from them 
the philosophical ideas are mainly derived. And indeed 
it is perfectly marvellous what doctrines men will find 
im Scripture, or deduce from Scripture. Is there not 



294 CONCERNING MAN 

Bomething curious in the capacity of the human mind, 
while glancing along the sacred volume, to find upon its 
pages both what suits its prevailing mood and its firm 
conviction at the time ? You feel buoyant and cheerful : 
you open your Bible and read it ; ^yhat a cheerful, hope- 
ful book it is ! You are depressed and anxious : you 
open your Bible ; surely it was written for people ii 
your present frame of mind ! It is wonderful to what 
a degree the Psalms especially suit the mood and temper 
of all kinds of readers in every conceivable position. I 
can imagine the poor suicide, stealing towards the peace- 
ful river, and musing on a verse of a psalm. I can im- 
agine the joyful man, on the morning of a marriage day 
which no malignant relatives have embittered, finding a 
verse which will seem like the echo of his cheerful tem- 
per. And passing from feeling to understanding, it is 
remarkable how, when a man is possessed with any 
strong belief, he will find, as he reads the Bible, not 
only many things which appear to him expressly to con- 
firm his view, but something in the entire tenor of what 
he reads that appears to harmonize with it. I doubt 
not the author of 3Ian and his Dwelling-Place can 
hardly open the Bible at random without chancing upon 
some passage which he regards as confirmatory of hia 
opinions. I am quite sure that to ordinary men hia 
opinions will appear flatly to conflict with the Bible's 
fundamental teaching. It has already been indicated in 
this essay in what sense the statements of the New Tes- 
tament to the following effect are to be understood : — 

The writers of the New Testament declare man to be dead. They 
speak of men as not having life, and tell of a life to be given them. 
If, therefore, our thoughts were truly conformed to the New Testa- 
ment, how could it seem a strange thing to us that this state of man 
Bhould be found a state of death ; how should its very words, ifaf 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 295 

firmed uv science, excite our surprise? "Would it not have appeared 
to us a natural result of the study of nature to prove man dead ? 
Might we not, if we had truly accepted the words of Scripture, have 
anticipated that it should be so ? For, if man be rightly called dead, 
should not that condition have affected his experience, and ought not 
a discovery of that fact to be the issue of his labours to ascertain his 
true relation to the universe ? Why does it seem a thing incredible 
to us that man should be really, actually dead : dead in such a sense 
as truly to affect his being, and determine his whole state ? Why 
have we been using words which affirm him dead in our religious 
speech, and feel startled at finding them proved true in another sphere 
of inquiry? 

It is indeed true — it is a thing to be taken as a fun- 
damental truth in reading the Bible — that in a certain 
sense man is dead, and is to be made alive ; and the 
analogy which obtains between natural death and what 
in theological language is called spiritual death, is in 
several respects so close and accurate that we feel that 
it is something more than a strong figure when the New 
Testament says such things as ' You hath he quickened 
who were dead in trespasses and sins/ But it tends 
only to confusion to seek to identify things so thoroughly 
different as natural and spiritual death. It is trifling 
with a man to say to him ' You are dead ! ' and having 
thus startled him, to go on to explain that you mean 
spiritually dead. ' Oh,' he will reply, ' I grant you that 
I may be dead in that sense, and possibly that is the 
more important sense, but it is not the sense in which 
words are commonly understood.' I can see, of course, 
various points of analogy between ordinary death and 
spiritual death. Does ordinary death render a man in- 
sensible to the presence of material things ? Then spirit- 
ual death renders him heedless of spiritual realities, of 
the presence of God, of the value of salvation, of the 
closeness of eternity. Does natural death appear in 



296 CONCERNING MAN 

utter helplessness and powerlessness ? So does spiritual 
death render a man incapable of spiritual action and ex- 
ertion. Has natural death its essence in the entire sep- 
aration it makes between dead and living ? So has 
spiritual death its essence in the separation of the soul 
from God. But, after all, these things do but show an 
malogj between natural death and spiritual : they do 
not show that the things are one ; they do not show that 
in the strict unfigurative use of terms man's spiritual 
condition is one of death. They show that man's spirit- 
ual condition is very like death ; that is all. It is so like 
as quite to justify the assertion in Scripture : it is not so 
identical as to justify the introduction of a new philo- 
sophical phrase. It is perfectly true that Christianity ia 
described in Scripture as a means for bringing menyrom 
death to life ; but it is also described, with equal mean- 
ing, as a means for bringing men from darkness to light. 
And it is easy to trace the analogy between man's spirit- 
ual condition and the condition of one in darkness — 
between man's redeemed condition and the condition of 
one in light ; but surely it would be childish to announce, 
as a philosophical discovery, that all men are blind, be- 
cause they cannot see their true interests and the things 
that most concern them. They are not blind in the 
ordinary sense, though they may be blind in a higher ; 
neither are they dead in the ordinary sense, though they 
may be in a higher. And only confusion, and a sense 
of being misled and trifled with, can follow from the 
pushing figure into fact and trying to identify the two. 

Stripping our author's views of the unusual phraseol- 
ogy in which they are disguised, they do, so far as regards 
the essential fact of man's loss and redemption, coincide 
exactly with the orthodox teaching of the Church of 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 297 

England. Man is by nature and sinfulness in a spiritual 
sense dead; dead now, and doomed to a worse death 
hereafter. By believing in Christ he at once obtains 
some share of a better spiritual life, and the hope of a 
future life which shall be perfectly holy and happy. 
Surely this is no new discovery. It is the type of 
Christianity implied in the Liturgy of the Church, and 
weekly set out from her thousands of pulpits. The 
startling novelties of Man and his Dwelling-Place are 
in matters of detail. He holds that fearful thing, Dara^ 
nation, which orthodox views push off into a future 
world, to be a present thing. It is now men are damned. 
It is now men are in hell. Wicked men are now in a 
state of damnation : they are now in hell. The common 
error arises from our thinking damnation a state of suf- 
fering. It is not. It is a state of something worse than 
suffering, viz., of sin : — 

We find it hard to believe that damnation can be a thing men like. 
But does not what every being likes depend on what it is ? Is cor- 
ruption less corruption, in man's view, because worms like it? Is 
damnation less damnation, in God's view, because men like it? And 
God's view is simply the truth. Surely one object of a revelation 
must be to show us things from God's view of them, that is, as they 
truly are. Sin truly is damnation, though to us it is pleasure. 
That sin is ]>leasure to us, surely is the evil part of our condition. 

And indeed it is to be admitted that there is a great 
and much-forgotten truth implied here. It is a very 
poor, and low, and inadequate idea of Christianity, to 
think of it merely as something which saves from suffer- 
ing — as something which saves us from hell, regarded 
ly 3rely as a place of misery. The Christian salvation is 
uiainly a deliverance from sin. The deliverance is pri- 
marily from moral evil ; and only secondarily from phys- 
ical or moral pain. ' Thou shalt call His name J(jsus, 



208 CONCERNING MAN 

for He shall save His people from their sins. No doubt 
this is very commonly forgotten. No doubt the vulgar 
idea of salvation and perdition founds on the vulgar be- 
lief that pain is the worst of all things, and happiness 
the best of all things. It is well that the coarse and sel- 
fish type of religion which founds on tlie mere desire to 
escape from burning and to lay hold of bliss, should b 
corrected by the diligent instilling of the belief, that sin 
is worse than sorrow. The Saviour's compassion, though 
ever ready to well out at the sight of suffering, went forth 
most warmly at the sight of sin. 

Here I close the book, not because there is not much 
more in it that well deserves notice, but because I hope 
that what has here been said of it will induce the thought- 
ful reader to study it for himself, and because I have space 
to write no more. It is a May afternoon ; not that on 
which the earliest pages of my article were written, but 
a week after it. I have gone at the ox-fence at last, and 
got over it with several contusions. Pardon me, unknown 
author, much admired for your ingenuity, your earnest- 
ness, your originality, your eloquence, if I have written 
with some show of lightness concerning your grave book. 
Very far, if you could know it, was any reality of light- 
ness from your reviewer's feeling. He is non ignarus 
mali: he has had his full allotment of anxiety and care ; 
and he hails with you the prospect of a day when human 
nature shall cast off its load of death, and when sinful and 
sorrowful man shall be brought into a beautiful conformity 
to external nature. Would that Man were worthy of his 
Dwelling-place as it looks upon this summer-like day ! 
Open, you latticed window : let the cool breeze come into 
this somewhat feverish room Again, the tree-tops .; again 



AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 299 

the white stones and green graves ; again the lambs, 
somewhat larger ; again the distant hill. Again I think 
of Cheapside, far away. Yet there is trouble here. Not 
a yard of any of those hedges but has worried its owner 
in watching that it be kept tight, that sheep or cattle may 
not break through. Not a gate I see but screwed a few 
shillings out of the anxious farmer's pocket, and is always 
going wrong. Not a field but either the landlord squeezed 
the tenant in the matter of rent, or the tenant cheated the 
landlord. Not the smoke of a cottage but marks where 
pass lives weighted down with constant care, and with 
little end save the sore struggle to keep the wolf from the 
door. Not one of these graves, save perhaps the poor 
friendless tramp's in the corner, but was opened and 
closed to the saddening of certain hearts. Here are lives 
of error, sleepless nights, over-driven brains ; wayward 
children, unnatural parents, though of these last, God be 
thanked, very few. Yes, says Adam Bede, ' there's a sort 
of wrong that can never be made up for.' No doubt we 
are dead : when shall we be quickened to a better life ? 
Surely, as it is, the world is too good for man. And I 
agree, most cordially and entirely, with the author of this 
book, that there is but one agency in the universe that can 
repress evil here, and extinguish it hereafter. 




CHAPTER X. 

LIFE AT THE WATER CUKE * 

[^>ij LL our readers, of course, have heard of the 
ij) Water Cure ; and many of them, we doubt 
not, have in their own minds ranked it among 
:] those eccentric medical systems which now 
and then spring up, are much talked of for a while, and 
finally sink into oblivion. The mention of the Water 
Cure is suggestive of galvanism, homoepathy, mesmerism, 
the grape cure, the bread cure, the mud-bath cure, and of 
the views of that gentleman who maintained that almost 
all the evils, physical and moral, which assail the consti- 
tution of man, are the result of the use of salt as an arti- 
cle of food, and may be avoided by ceasing to employ that 
poisonous and immoral ingredient. Perhaps there is a 
still more unlucky association with life pills, universal 
vegetable medicines, and the other appliances of that 
coarser quackery which yearly brings hundreds of gulli- 

* A Month at Malvern^ under the Water Cure. By R. J. Lane, A. 
E. R. A. Third Edition. Reconsidered — Rewritten. London: Johu 
Mitchell. 1855. 

Spirits and Water. By R. J. L. London : John Mitchell. 1855. 

Confessions of a Water- Patient. By Sir E. B. Lytton, Bart. 

Hints to the Sick, the Lame, and the Lazy : or. Passages in the Life of 
.1 Hydrqpathist. By a Veteran. London: John Ollivier. 1848. 



LIFE AT THE TVATER CURE. *o01 

ble Britons to their graves, and contributes thousands of 
pounds in the form of stamp-duty to the revenue of this 
great and enlightened country. 

It is a curious phase of life that is presented at a Water 
Cure establishment. The Water Cure system cannot be 
carried out satisfactorily except at an establishment pre- 
pared for the purpose. An expensive array of baths ia 
necessary ; so are well-trained bath servants, and an ex- 
perieuiced medical man to watch the process of cure : the 
mode of life does not suit the arrangements of a family, 
and the listlessness of mind attendant on the water-system 
quite unfits a man for any active employment. There 
must be pure country air to breathe, a plentiful supply of 
the best water, abundant means of taking exercise — Sir 
E. B. Lytton goes the length of maintaining that moun- 
tains to climb are indispensable ; — and to enjoy all these 
advantages one must go to a hydropathic establishment. 
It may be supposed that many odd people are to be met 
at such a place ; strong-minded women who have broken 
through the trammels of the Faculty, and gone to the 
Water Cure in spite of the warnings of their medical men, 
and their friends' kind predictions that they would never 
live to come back ; and hypochondriac men, who have 
tried all quack remedies in vain, and who have come de- 
spairingly to try one which, before trying it, they proba- 
bly looked to as the most violent and perilous of all. And 
the change of life is total. You may have finished your 
bottle of port daily for twenty years, but at the Water 
Cure you must perforce practise total abstinence. For 
years you may never have tasted fair water, but here you 
will get nothing else to drink, and you will have to dispose of 
your seven or eight tumblers a day. You may have been 
accustomed to loll in bed of a morning till nine or ten 



302 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

o'clock ; but here you must imitate those who would 
thrive, and ' rise at five:' while the exertion is compen- 
sated by your having to bundle oflf to your chamber at 
9.30 p. M. You may long at breakfast for your hot tea, 
and if a Scotchman, for your grouse pie or devilled kid- 
neys ; but you will be obliged to make up with the 
simpler refreshment of bread and milk, with the accom- 
paniment of stewed Normandy pippins. You may have 
been wont to spend your days in a fever of business, in a 
breathless hurry and worry of engagements to be met and 
matters to be seen to ; but after a week under the Water 
Cure, you will find yourself stretched listlessly upon grassy 
banks in the summer noon, or sauntering all day beneath 
the horse-chestnuts of Sudbrook, with a mind as free from 
business cares as if you were numbered among Tenny- 
son's lotos-eaters, or the denizens of Thomson's Castle of 
Indolence. And with God's blessing upon the pure ele- 
ment He has given us in such abundance, you will shortly 
(testibus Mr. Lane and Sir E. B. Lytton) experience 
other changes as complete, and more agreeable. You 
will find that the appetite which no dainty could tempt, 
now discovers in the simplest fare a relish unknown since 
childhood. You will find the broken rest and the troubled 
dreams which for years have made the midnight watches 
terrible, exchanged for the long refreshful sleep that 
makes one mouthful of the night. You will find the 
gloom and depression and anxiety which were growing 
your habitual temper, succeeded by a lightness of heart 
and buoyancy of spirit which you cannot account for, but 
which you thankfully enjoy. We doubt not that some of 
our readers, filled with terrible ideas as to the violent and 
perilous nature of the Water Cure, will give us credit for 
Bome strength of mind when we tell them that we have 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 303 

proved for ourselves the entire mode of life ; we can assure 
them that there is nothing so very dreadful about it ; and 
we trust they may not smile at us as harmlessly monoma- 
niacal when we say that, without going the lengths its out- 
and-out advocates do, we believe that in certain states of 
health much benefit may really be derived from the system. 
Sir E. B. Lytton's eloquent Confessions of a Water- 
Patient have been before the public for some years. The 
Hints to the Sick, the Lame, and the Lazy, give us an ac- 
count of the ailments and recovery of an old military offi- 
cer, who, after suffering severely from gout, was quite set 
up by a few weeks at a hydropathic establishment at 
Marienberg on the Rhine ; and who, by occasional recur- 
rence to the same remedy, is kept in such a state of pres- 
ervation that, though advanced in years, he ' is able to 
go eight miles within two hours, and can go up hill with 
most young fellows.' The old gentleman's book, with its 
odd woodcuts, and a certain freshness and incorrectness 
of style — we speak grammatically — in keeping with the 
character of an old soldier, is readable enough. Mr. 
Lane's books are far from being well written ; the Spirits 
and Water, especially, is extremely poor stuff. The Month 
at Malvern is disfigured by similar faults of style ; but Mr. 
Lane has really something to tell us in that work : and 
there is a good deal of interest at once in knowing how a 
man who had been reduced to the last degree of debility 
of body and mind, was so effectually restored, that now 
for years he has, on occasion, proved himself equal to a 
forty-miles' walk among the Welsh mountains on a warm 
summer day ; and also in remarking the boyish exhilara- 
tion of spi7'its in which Mr. Lane writes, which he tells ua 
is quite a characteristic result of 'initiation into the ex 
citements of the Water Cure.' 



304 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

Mr. Lane seems to have been in a very bad way. He 
gives an appalling account of the medical treatment under 
which he had suffered for nearly thirty years. In spite 
of it all he found, at the age of forty-five, that his entire 
system was showing signs of breaking up. He was suf- 
fering from neuralgia, which we believe means something 
like tic-douloureux extending over the whole body ; he 
was threatened with paralysis, which had advanced so far 
as to have benumbed his right side ; his memory was 
going ; his mind was weakened ; he was, in his own 
words, 'no use to anybody:' there were deep cracks 
round the edge of his tongue ; his throat was ulcerated ; 
in short, he was in a shocking state, and never likely to 
be better. Like many people in such sad circumstances, 
he had tried all other remedies before thinking of the 
Water Cure ; he had resorted to galvanism, and so forth, 
but always got worse. At length, on the 13th of May, 
1845, Mr. Lane betook himself to Malvern, where Dr. 
Wilson presides over one of the largest cold-water estab- 
lishments in the kingdom. In those days there were 
some seventy patients in residence, but the new-comer was 
pleased to find that there was nothing repulsive in the 
appearance of any of his confreres, — a consideration of 
material importance, inasmuch as the patients breakfast, 
dine, and sup together. Nothing could have a more 
depressing effect upon any invalid, than to be constantly 
surrounded by a crowd of people manifestly dying, or 
afflicted with visible and disagreeable disease. The fac 
is, judging from our own experience, that the people who 
go to the Water Cure are for the most part not suffering 
from real and tangible ailments, but from maladies of a 
comparatively fanciful kind, — such as low spirits, shat- 
tered nerves, and lassitude, the result of overwork. And 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 305 

ou^ readers may be disposed to think, with ourselves, that 
the change of air and scene, the return to a simple and 
natural mode of life, and the breaking off from the cares 
and engagements of business, have quite as much to do 
with their restoration as the water-system, properly so 
called. 

The situation of Malvern is well adapted to the suo- 
cessful use of the water system. Sir E. B. Lytton tells 
us that ' the air of Malvern is in itself hygeian : the 
water is immemorially celebrated for its purity : the 
landscape is a perpetual pleasure to the eye.' The 
neighbouring hills offer the exercise most suited to the 
cure : Priessnitz said ' One must have mountains : ' and 
Dr. Wilson told Mr. Lane, in answer to a remark that 
the Water Cure had failed at Bath and Cheltenham, 
that * no good and difficult cures can be made in low or 
damp situations, by swampy grounds, or near the beds 
of rivers.' 

The morning after his arrival, Mr. Lane fairly entered 
^pon the Water System : and his diary for the following 
month shows us that his time was fully occupied by baths 
ftf one sort or another, and by the needful exercise before 
and after these. The patient is gradually brought under 
the full force of hydropathy : some of the severer ap- 
pliances — such as the plunge-bath after packing, and 
the douche — not being employed till he has been in 
some degree seasoned and strung up for them. A very 
short time sufficed to dissipate the notion that there is 
anything violent or alarming about the Water Cure ; 
and to convince the patient that every part of ic is posi- 
tively enjoyable. There was no shock to the system : 
there was nothing painful: no nauseous meaicines to 
swallow ; no vile bleeding and blistering. ■3itz-baths, 
20 



306 LIFE AT THE WATER CUKE. 

foot-batlis, plunge-baths, douches, and wet-sheet packings, 
speedily began to do their work upon Mr. Lane ; and 
what with bathing, walking, hill-chmbing, eating and 
drinking, and making up fast friendships with some of 
his brethren of the Water Cure, he appears to have had 
a very pleasant time of it. He tells us that he found 
ihat — 

The palliative and soothing effects of the water treatment are estab- 
ished immediately ; and the absence of all irritation begets a lull, as 
nstantaneous in its effects upon the frame as that experienced in 
•helter from the storm. 

A sense of present happiness, of joyous spirits, of confidence in my 
proceedings, possesses me on this, the third day of my stay. I do not 
say that it is reasonable to experience this sudden accession, or that 
everybody is expected to attribute it to the course of treatment so 
recently commenced. I only say, so it is ; and I look for a confirma- 
tion of this happy frame of mind, when supported by renewed strength 
of body. 

To the same effect Sir E. B. Lytton : 

Cares and griefs are forgotten : the sense of the present absorbs the 
past and future : there is a certain freshness and youth which pervade 
the spirits, and live upon the enjoyment of the actual hour. 

And the author of the Hints to the Sick, &c, : ^ 

Should my readers find me prosy, I hope that they will pardon an 
old fellov, who looks back to his Water Cure course as one of the 
most delightful portions of a tolerably prosperous life. 

When shall we find the subjects of the established 
system of medical treatment growing eloquent on the 
sudden accession of spirits consequent on a blister ap- 
plied to the chest ; the buoyancy of heart which attends 
the operation of six dozen leeches ; the youthful gaiety 
which results from the ' exhibition ' of a dose of castor 
oil ? It is no small recommendation of the water system, 
that it makes people so jolly while under it. 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 307 

But it was not merely present cheerfulness that Mr. 
Lane experienced : day by day his ailments were melt- 
ing away. AVhen he reached Malvern he limped pain- 
fully, and found it impossible to straighten his right leg, 
from a strain in the knee. In a week he ' did not know 
that he had a knee.' We are not going to follow the de- 
tail of his symptoms : suffice it to say that the distressing 
circumstances already mentioned gradually disappeared ; 
every day he felt stronger and better ; the half-paralysed 
side got all right again ; mind and body alike recovered 
their tone : the ' month at Malvern ' was followed up by 
a course of hydropathic treatment at home, such as the 
exigencies of home-life will permit; and the upshot of 
the whole was, that from being a wretched invalid, in- 
capable of the least exertion, mental or physical, Mr. 
Lane was permanently brought to a state of health and 
strength, activity and cheerfulness. All this improve- 
ment he has hot the least hesitation in ascribing to the 
virtue of the Water Cure ; and after eight or ten years* 
experience of the system and its results, his faith in it is 
stronger than ever. 

In quitting Malvern, the following is his review of the 
sensations of the past month : — 

I look back with astonishment at the temper of mind which has pre- 
vailed over the great anxieties that, heavier than my illness, had been 
bearing their weight upon me. Weakness of body had been chiefly 
oppressive, because by it I was deprived of the power of alleviating 
those anxieties ; and now, with all that accumulation of mental pres- 
sure, with my burden in full cry, and even gaining upon me during 
the space thus occupied, I have to reflect upon time passed in merri- 
ment, and attended by never-failing joyous spirits. 

To the distress of mind occasioned by gathering ailments, was 
added the pain of banishment from home ; and yet I have been trans- 
lated to a life of careless ease. Any one whose knowledge of the 
Bolid weight that I carried to this place would qualify him to estimate 



308 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

the state of mind in which I left my home, might well be at a loss to 
appreciate the influences which had suddenly soothed and exhilarat- 
ed my whole nature, until alacrity of mind and healthful gaiety be- 
came expansive, and the buoyant spirit on the surface was stretched to 
unbecoming mirth and lightness of heart. 

So much for Mr. Lane's experience of the Water 
Cure. As to its power in acute disease we shall speak 
hereafter ; but its great recommendations in all cases 
where the system has been broken down by overwork, 
are (if we are to credit its advocates) two : first, it 
braces up body and mind, and restores their healthy 
tone, in a way that nothing else can; and next, the en- 
tire operation by which all this is accomplished, is a 
course of physical and mental enjoyment. 

But by this time we can imagine our readers asking 
with some impatience, what is the Water Cure ? What 
is the precise nature of all those oddly-named appliances 
by which it produces its results ? Now this is just what 
we are going to explain ; but we have artfully and deep- 
ly sought to set out the benefits ascribed to the system 
before doing so, in the hope that that large portion of 
the human race which reads Fraser may feel the greater 
interest in the details which follow, when each of the 
individuals who compose it remembers, that these sitzes 
and douches are not merely the things which set up Sir 
E. B. Lytton, Mr. Lane, and our old military friend, but 
are the thingi which may some day be called on to re- 
vive his own sinking strength and his own drooping 
spirits. And as the treatment to which all water pa- 
tients are subjected appears to be much the same, we 
shall best explain the nature of the various baths by 
describing them as we ourselves found them. 

Our story is a very simple one. Some years since, 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 8')9 

after many terms of hard College work, we found our 
strength completely break down. We were languid and 
dispirited ; everything was an effort : we felt that wheth- 
er study in our case had ' made the mind ' or not, it 
Lad certainly accomplished the other result which Fes- 
tus ascribes to it, and ' unmade the body.' We tried 
sea-bathing, cod-liver oil, and everything else that medi- 
cal men prescribe to people done up by over study ; but 
nothing did much good. Finally, we determined to 
throw physic to the dogs, and to try a couple of months 
at the Water Cure. It does cost an effort to make up 
one's mind to go there, not only because the inexperi- 
enced in the matter fancy the water system a very peril- 
ous one, but also because one's steady-going friends, on 
hearing of our purpose, are apt to shake their heads, — 
perhaps even to tap their foreheads, — to speak doubt- 
fully of our common sense, and express a kind hope — 
behind our backs, especially — that we are not growing 
fanciful and hypochondriac, and that we may not end 
in writing testimonials in favour of Professor Holloway. 
We have already said that to have the full benefit of the 
Water Cure, one must go to a hydropathic establishment. 
There are numbers of these in Germany, and all along 
the Rhine ; and there are several in England, which are 
conducted in a way more accordant with our English 
ideas. At Malvern we believe there are two ; there is 
a large one at Ben Rhydding, in Yorkshire ; one at 
Sudbrook Park, between Richmond and Ham ; and 
another at Moor Park, near Farnham. Its vicinity to 
London led us to prefer the one at Sudbrook ; and on a 
beautiful evening in the middle of May we found our way 
down through that garden-like country, so green and rich 
to our eyes, long accustomed to the colder landscapes of 



310 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

the north. Sadbrook Park is a noble place. The 
grounds stretch for a mile or more along Richmond 
Park, from which they are separated only by a wire 
fence ; the trees are magnificent, the growth of centu- 
ries, and among them are enormous hickories, acacias, 
and tulip-trees ; while horse-chestnuts without number 
make a very blaze of floral illumination through the 
leafy month of June. Pichmond-hill, with its unrivalled 
views, rises from Sudbrook Park ; and that eene-looking 
Ham House, the very ideal of the old English manor- 
house, with its noble avenues which make twilight walks 
all the summer day, is within a quarter of a mile. As 
for the house itself, it is situated at the foot of the slope 
on whose summit Lord John Russell's house stands ; it 
is of great extent, and can accommodate a host of pa- 
tients, though when we were there, the number of inmates 
was less than twenty. It is very imposing externally ; 
but the only striking feature of its interior is the dining- 
room, a noble hall of forty feet in length, breadth, and 
height. It is wainscoted with black oak, which some 
vile wretch of a water doctor painted white, on the 
ground that it darkened the room. As for the remainder 
of the house, it is divided into commonplace bed-rooms 
and sitting-rooms, and provided with bathing appliances 
of every conceivable kind. On arriving at a water es- 
tablishment, the patient is carefully examined, chiefly to 
discover if anything be wrong about the heai't, as certain 
baths would have a most injurious effect should that be 
so. The doctor gives his directions to the bath attendant 
as to the treatment to be followed, which, however, i.« 
much the same with almost all patients. The new- 
comer finds a long table in the dining-hall, covered with 
bread and milk, between six and seven in the evening 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 311 

and here he makes his evening meal with some wry 
faces. At half-past nine p. m. he is conducted to his 
chamber, a bare little apartment, very plainly furnished. 
The bed is a narrow little thing, wuth no curtains of any 
kind. One sleeps on a mattress, which feels pretty hard 
at first. The jolly and contented looks of the patients 
had tended somewhat to reassure us ; still, we had a 
nervous feeling that we were fairly in for it, and could 
not divest ourselves of some alarm as to the ordeal before 
us ; so we heard the nightingale sing for many hours 
before we closed our eyes on that first night at Sudbrook 
Park. 

It did not seem a minute since we had fallen asleep, 
when we were awakened by some one entering our 
room, and by a voice which said, ' I hef come tu pack 
yew.' It was the bath-man, WilHam, to whose charge 
we had been given, and whom we soon came to like ex- 
ceedingly ; a most good-tempered, active, and attentive 
little German. We were very sleepy, and inquired as 
to the hour; it was five a.m. There was no help for it, 
so we scrambled out of bed and sat on a chair, wrapped 
in the bed-clothes, watching William with sleepy eyes. 
He spread upon our little bed a very thick and coarse 
double blanket ; he then produced from a tub what looked 
like a thick twisted cable, which he proceeded to unroll. 
It was a sheet of coarse linen, wrung out of the coldest 
water. And so here was the terrible wet sheet of which 
we had heard so much. We shuddered with terror. 
William saw our trepidation, and said, benevolently, 
Yew vill soon like him mosh.' He spread out the wet 
sheet upon the tliick blanket, and told us to strip and 
lie down upon it. Oh ! it was cold as ice ! William 
speedily wrapped it around us. A-wfully comfortless 



312 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

was the first sensation. We tried to toucli the cold 
damp thing at as few points as possible. It would not 
do. William relentlessly drew the blanket tight round 
us ; every inch of our superJScies felt the chill of the 
sheet. Then he placed above us a feather bed, cut out 
to fit about the head, and stretched no end of blankets 
over all. ' How long are we to be here ? ' was our in- 
quiry. * Fifty minutes,' said William, and disappeared. 
So there we were, packed in the wet sheet, stretched on 
our back, our hands pinioned by our sides, as incapable 
of moving as an Egyptian mummy in its swathes. ' What 
on earth shall we do,' we remember thinking, ' if a fire 
breaks out?' Had a robber entered and walked off 
with our watch and money, we must have lain and 
looked at him, for we could not move a finger. By the 
time we had thought all this, the chilly, comfortless feel- 
ing was gone ; in ten minutes or less, a sensation of 
delicious languor stole over us : in a little longer we were 
fast asleep. We have had many a pack since, and we 
may say that the feeling is most agreeable when one 
keeps awake ; body and mind are soothed into an inde- 
scribable tranquillity ; the sensation is one of calm, solid 
enjoyment. In fifty minutes William returned. He 
removed the blankets and bed which covered us, but 
left us enveloped in the sheet and coarse blanket. By 
this time the patient is generally in a profuse perspira- 
tion. William turned us round, and made us slip out 
of bed upon our feet ; then slightly loosing the lower 
part of our cerements so that we could walk with diffi- 
culty, he took us by the shoulders and guided our un- 
Bteady steps out of our chamber, along a little passage, 
into an apartment containing a plunge bath. The bath 
was about twelve feet square ; its floor and sides covered 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 313 

with white encaustic tiles ; the water, clear as crystal 
against that light background, was five feet deep. In a 
trice we were denuded of our remaining apparel, and 
desired to plunge into the bath, head first. The whole 
thing was done in less time than it has taken to describe 
•t: no caloric had escaped: we were steaming like a 
*oach horse that has done its ten miles within the hour 
on a summer-day ; and it certainly struck us that the 
Water Cure had some rather violent measures in its 
repertory. We went a step or two down the ladder, 
and then plunged in overhead. ' One plunge more and 
out,' exclaimed the faithful William ; and we obeyed. 
We were so thoroughly heated beforehand, that we 
never felt the bath to be cold. On coming out, a coarse 
linen sheet was thrown over us, large enough to have 
covered half-a-dozen men, and the bath-man rubbed us, 
ourselves aiding in the operation, till we were all in a 
glow of warmth. We then dressed as fast as possible, 
postponing for the present the operation of shaving, 
drank two tumblers of cold water, and took a rapid 
walk round the wilderness (an expanse of shrubbery 
near the house is so called), in the crisp, fresh morning 
air. The sunshine was of the brightest ; the dew was on 
the grass ; everybody was early there ; fresh-looking pa- 
tients were walking in all directions at the rate of fivo 
miles an hour ; the gardeners were astir ; we heard the 
cheerful sound of the mower whetting his scythe ; the 
air was filled with the freshness of the newly-cut grass, 
and w^ith the fragrance of hlac and hawthorn blossom ; 
and all this by half-past six a.m. ! How we pitied the 
dullards that were lagging a-bed on that bright summer 
morning ! One turn round the wilderness occupies ten 
minutes : we then dj'ank two more tumblers of water. 



314 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

and took a second turn of ten minutes. Two tumblers 
more, and another turn ; and then, in a glow of health 
and good humour, into our chamber to dress for the day. 
The main supply of water is drunk before breakfast ; 
we took six tumblers daily at that time, and did not take 
more than two or three additional in the remainder of 
the day. By eight o'clock breakfast was on the table 
in the large hall, where it remained till half-past nine. 
Bread, milk, water, and stewed pippins (cold), formed 
the morning meal. And didn't we polish it off! The 
accession of appetite is immediate. 

Such is the process entitled the Pack and Plunge. 
It was the beginning of the day's proceedings during 
the two months we spent at Sudbrook. We believe it 
forms the morning treatment of almost every patient ; 
a shallow bath after packing being substituted for the 
plunge in the case of the more nervous. With whatever 
apprehension people may have looked forward to being 
packed before having experienced the process, they gen- 
erally take to it kindly after a single trial. The pack is 
perhaps the most popular part of the entire cold water 
treatment. 

Mr. Lane says of it : — 

What occurred during a full hour after this operation (being 
packed) I am not in a condition to depose, beyond the fact that the 
Bound, sweet, soothing sleep which I enjoyed, was a matter of sur- 
prise and delight. I was detected by Mr. Bardon, who came to awake 
me, smiling, like a great fool, at nothing; if not at the fancies which 
had pliiyed about my slumbers. Of the heat in which I found myself 
I must remark, that it is as distinct from perspiration, as from the 
parched and throbbing glow of fever. The pores are open, and the 
warmth of the body is soon communicated to the sheet ; until — as in 
this my first experience of the luxury — a breathing, steaming heat is 
engendered, which fills the whole of the wrappers, and is plentifully 
ihown in the smoking state which they exhibit as they are removed. 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 315 

I shall never forget the luxurious ease in which I awoke on this morn- 
ing, and looked forwai'd with pleasure to the daily repetition of what 
had been quoted to me by the uninitiated with disgust and shudder- 
ing. 

Sir E. B. Lytton says of the pack : — 

Of all the curatives adopted by hydropathists, it is unquestionably tho 
safest — the one that can be applied without danger to the greiJest 
variety of cases; and which, I do not hesitate to aver, can rarely, if 
ever, be misapplied in any case where the pulse is hard and high, and 
the skin dry and burning. Its theory is that of warmth and moisture, 
those friendliest agents to inflammatory disorders. 

I have been told, or have read (says Mr. Lane), put a man into the 
wet sheet who had contemplated suicide, and it would turn him from 
his purpose. At least I will say, let me get hold of a man who has a 
pet enmity, who cherishes a vindictive feeling, and let me introduce 
him to the soothing process. I believe that his bad passion would not 
linger in its old quarters three days, and that after a week his leading 
iesire would be to hold out the hand to his late enemy. 

Of the sensation in the pack, Sir E. B. Lytton tells 
tjs : — 

The momentary chill is promptly succeeded by a gradual and vivify- 
ing warmth, perfectly free from the irritation of dry heat; a delicious 
sense of ease is usually followed by a sleep more agreeable than ano- 
dynes ever produced. It seems a positive cruelty to be relieved from 
this magic girdle, in which pain is lulled, and fever cooled, and watch- 
fulness lapped in slumber. 

The hydropathic breakfast at Sudbrook being over, at 
nine o'clock we had a foot-bath. This is a very simple 
matter. The feet are placed in a tub of cold water, and 
rubbed for four or five minutes by the bath-man. The 
philosophy of this bath is thus explained : — 

The soles of the feet and the palms of the hands are extremely sen- 
sitive, having abundance of nerves, as we find if we tickle them If 
the feet are put often into hot water, they will become habitually cold, 
and make one more or less delicate and nervous. On the other hand, 
by rubbing the feet often in cold water, they will become permanent/ y 



316 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

warm. A cold foot-bath will stop a violent fit of hysterics. Cold fe<at 
show defective circulation. 

At half-past ten in the forenoon we were subjected to 
by far the most trying agent in the water system — the 
often-mentioned douche. No patient is allowed to have 
the douche till he has been acclimated by at least a fort- 
night's treatment. Our readers will understand that 
from this hour onward we are describinor not our first 
Sudbrook day, but a representative day, such as our days 
were when we had got into the full play of the system. 
The douche consists of a stream of water, as thick as 
one's arm, falling from a height of twenty-four feet. A 
pipe, narrowing to the end, conducts the stream for the 
first six feet of its fall, and gives it a somewhat slanting 
direction. The water falls, we need hardly say, with a 
tremendous rush, and is beaten to foam on the open 
wooden floor. There were two douches at Sudbrook : 
one, of a somewhat milder nature, being intended for the 
lady patients. Every one is a little nervous at first tak- 
ing this bath. One cannot be too warm before having 
it : we always took a rapid walk of half an hour, and 
came up to the ordeal glowing like a furnace. The 
faithful William was waiting our arrival, and ushered us 
into a little dressing-room, where we disrobed. William 
then pulled a cord, which let loose the formidable torrent, 
and we hastened to place ourselves under it. The course 
is to back gradually till it falls upon the shoulders, then 
to sway about till every part of the back and limbs has 
been played upon : but great care must be taken not to 
let the stream fall upon the head, where its force would 
probably be dangerous. The patient takes this bath at 
first for one minute ; the time is lengthened daily till it 
reaches four minutes, and there it stops. The sensation 



LIFE AT THE WATER CUEE. 317 

18 that of a violent continuous force assailing one; we 
are persuaded that were a man blindfolded, and so deaf 
as not to hear the splash of the falling stream, he could 
not for his life tell what was the cause of the terrible 
shock he was enduring. It is not in the least like the 
result of water: indeed it is unlike any sensation we 
ever experienced elsewhere. At the end of our four 
minutes the current ceases ; we enter the dressing-room, 
and are rubbed as after the plunge-bath. The reaction 
is mstantaneous : the blood is at once called to the sur- 
face, * Red as a rose were we:' we were more than 
waim ; we w^ere absolutely hot. 

Mr. Lane records some proofs of the force with which 
the douche falls : — 

In a corner of one dressing-room is a broken chair. "What does it 
mean ? A stout lady, being alarmed at the fall from the cistern, to 
reduce the height, carefully placed what was a chair, and stood upon 
it. Down came the column of water — smash went the chair to bits 
— and down fell the poor lady prostrate. She did not douche again 
for a fortnight. 

Last winter a man was being douched, when an icicle that had been 
formed in the night was dislodged by the first rush of water, and fell 
on his back. Bardon, seeing the bleeding, stopped the douche, but 
the douchee had not felt the blow as anything unusual. He had been 
douched daily, and calculated on such a force as he experienced. 

Although most patients come to like the douche, it is 
always to be taken with caution. That it is dangerous 
in certain conditions of the body, there is no doubt. Sir 
E. B. Lytton speaks strongly on this point : — 

Never let the eulogies which many will pass upon the douche tempt 
you to take it on the sly, unknown to your adviser. The douche is 
dangerous when the body is unprepared — when the heart is affected — 
when apoplexy may be feared. 

After having douched, which process was over by 
eleven, we had till one o'clock without further treat- 



318 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

ment. We soon came to feel that indisposition to active 
employment which is characteristic of the system ; and 
these two hours were given to sauntering, generally alone, 
in the green avenues and country lanes about Ham and 
Twickenham ; but as we have already said something 
of the charming and thoroughly English scenes which 
su/round Sudbrook, we shall add nothing further upon 
that subject now — though the blossoming horse chest- 
nuts and the sombre cedars of Richmond Park, the 
bright stretches of the Thames, and the quaint gateways 
and terraces of Ham House, the startled deer and the 
gorse-covered common, all picture themselves before our 
mind at the mention of those walks, and tempt us sorely. 

At one o'clock we returned to our chamber, and had a 
Lead-bath. We lay upon the ground for six minutes, if 
we remember rightly, with the back of our head in a 
shallow vessel of water. 

Half-past one was the dinner hour. All the patients 
were punctually present ; those who had been longest in 
the house occupying the seats next those of Dr. and Mrs. 
Ellis, who presided at either end of the table. The din- 
ners were plain, but abundant ; and the guests brought 
with them noble appetites, so that it was agreed on all 
hands that there never was such beef or mutton as that 
of Sudbrook. Soup was seldom permitted : plain joints 
were the order of the day, and the abundant use of fresh 
vegetables was encouraged. Plain puddings, such as 
rice and sago, followed ; there was plenty of water to 
drink. A number of men-servants waited, among whom 
we recognized our friend William, disguised in a white 
stock. The entertainment did not last long. In half an 
hour the ladies withdrew to their drawing-room, and the 
gentlemen dispersed themselves about the place once 
more. 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 819 

Of the Malvern dinners, Mr. Lane writes as fol- 
lows : — 

At the head of the table, where the doctor presides, was the leg of 
mutton, which, I believe, is even' day's head dish. I forget what Mr. 
Wilson dispensed, but it was something savourj' of fish. I saw veal 
cutlets with bacon, and a companion dish; maccaroni with gravy, po- 
tatoes plain boiled, or mashed and browned, spinach, and othei green 
vegetables. Then followed rich pudding, tapioca, and some other 
farinaceous ditto, rhubarb tarts, &c. So much for what I have heard 
^f the miserable diet of water patients. 

Dinner being dispatched, there came the same listless 
sauntering about till four o'clock, when the pack and 
plunge of the morning were repeated. At half-past six 
we had another head-bath. Immediately after it there 
was supper, which was 3ifac simile of breakfast. Then, 
more sauntering in the fading twilight, and at half-past 
nine we paced the long corridor leading to our chamber, 
and speedily were sound asleep. No midnight tossings, 
no troubled dreams ; one long deep slumber till Wil- 
liam appeared next morning at five, to begin the round 
again. 

Such was our life at the Water Cure : a contrast as 
complete as might be to the life which preceded and fol- 
lowed it. Speaking for ourselves, we should say that 
there is a great deal of exaggeration in the accounts we 
have sometimes read of the restorative influence of tho 
system. It wrought no miracle in our case. A couple 
of months at the sea-side would probably have produced 
much the same effect. We did not experience that ex- 
treme exhilaration of spirits which Mr. Lane speaks of. 
Perhaps the soft summer climate of Surrey, in a district 
rather over-wooded, wanted something of the bracing qual- 
ity wliich dwells in the keener air of the Malvern hills. 
Yet the systei/i strung us up wonderfully, and sent us 



320 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

home with much improved strength and heart. And 
since that time, few mornings have dawned on which we 
have not tumbled into the cold bath on first rising, and, 
following the process by a vigorous rubbing with towels 
of extreme roughness, experienced the bracing influence 
of cold water alike on the body and the mind. 

We must give some account of certain other baths, 
"which have not come within our course latterly, though 
we have at different times tried them all. We have 
mentioned the sitz-hath ; here is its nature : — 

It is not disagreeable, but very odd: and exhibits the patient in by 
no means an elegant or dignified attitude. For this bath it is not 
necessary to undress, the coat only being taken off", and the shirt 
gathered under the waistcoat, which is buttoned upon it; and when 
seated in the water, which rises to the waist, a blanket is drawn round 
and over the shoulders. Having remained ten minutes in this con- 
dition, we dried and rubbed ourselves with coarse toAvels, and after teu 
minutes' walk, proceeded to supper with a good appetite. 

The soothing and tranquillizing effect of the sitz is 
described as extraordinary : — 

In sultry weather, when indolence seems the only resource, a sitz of 
ten minutes at noon will suffice to protect against the enervating effect 
of heat, and to rouse from listlessness and inactivity. 

If two or three hours have been occupied by anxious conversation, 
by many visitors, or by any of the perplexities of daily occurrence, a 
sitz will effectually relieve the throbbing head, and fit one for a return 
(if it must be so) to the turmoil and bustle. 

If an anxious letter is to be mentally weighed, or an important letter 
to be answered, the matter and the manner can be under no circum- 
stances 30 adequately pondered as in the sitz. How this quickening ol 
the faculties is engendered, and by what immediate action it is pro- 
duced, I cannot explain, and invite others to test it by practice. 

I have in mj' own experience proved the sitz to be cogitatory, con 
Bolatory, quiescent, refrigeratory, revivificatory, or all these together. 

Thus far Mr. Lane. The Brause-had is thus described 
by our old military friend : — 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 321 

At eleven o'clock I went to the Brause-bad. This is too delightful: 
it requires a day or two of practice to enable the patient to enjoy it 
thoroughly. The water at Marienberg is all very cold, and one must 
never stand still for above a few seconds at a time, and must be ever 
employed in rubbing the parts of the body which are exposed to the 
silvery element. The bath is a square room, eight feet by six. The 
shower above consists of a treble row of holes, drilled in a metal vessel, 
about one foot long, and at an elevation of eight feet from the floor. 
There is, besides, a lateral gush of water, in bulk about equal to three 
ordinary pumps, which bathes the middle man. When I entered the 
bath, I held my hands over my head, to break the force of the water; 
and having thus seasoned my knowledge-box, I allowed the water to fall 
on my back and breast alternately, rubbing most vigorously with both 
hands : the allotted time for this aquatic sport is four minutes, but I fre- 
quently begged the bademeister to allow me a minute or two more. At 
my sortie, the bademeister threw over me the dry sheet, and he and his 
assistants rubbed me drj- to the bone, and left me in full scarlet uni- 
form. After this bath I took at least three glasses of water, and a most 
vigorous walk. 

One of the least agreeable processes in the water sys- 
tem is being sweated, Mr. Lane describes his sensations 
as follows : — 

At five o'clock in walked the executioner who was to initiate me into 
the sweating process. There was nothing aAvful in the commencement. 
Two dry blankets were spread upon the mattress, and I was enveloped 
in them as in the wet sheet, being well and closely tucked in round the 
neck, and the head raised on two pillows. Then came my old friend 
the down bed, and a counterpane. 

At first I felt very comfortable, but in ten minutes the irritation of 
tlie blanket was disagreeable, and endurance was my only resource ; 
thought upon other subjects out of the question. In half-an-hour I 
wondered when it would begin to act. At six, in came Bardon to give 
me water to drink. Another hour, and I was getting into a state. I 
had for ten minutes followed Bardon's directions b^"^ slightly moving 
my bands and legs, and the profuse perspiration was a relief; besides, 
"'^ knew that I should be soon fit to be bathed, and what a tenfold treat ! 
He gave me more water ; and in a quarter of an hour he returned, when 
I stepped, in a precious condition, into the cold bath, Bardon using 
more water on my head and shoulders than usual, more rubbing and 
spunging, and afterwards more vigorous dry rubbing. I was more 
than pink, and hastened to get out and compare notes with Sterling. 
21 



322 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

Bj the sweating process, the twenty-eight miles of 
tubing which exist in the pores of the skin are effectually 
reHeved ; and — in Dr. Wilson's words — * you lose a 
little water, and put yourself in a state to make^esA/ 
The sweating process is known at water establishments as 
the 'blanket-pack.' 

We believe we have mentioned every hydropathic ap- 
pliance that is in common use, with the exception of what 
is called the ' rub in a wet sheet.' This consists in hav 
ing a sheet, dripping wet, thrown round one, and in being 
vehemently rubbed by the bath-man, the patient assisting. 
The effect is very bracing and exhilarating on a sultry 
summer day ; and this treatment has the recommendation 
that it is applied and done with in the course of a few 
minutes ; nor does it need any preliminary process. It 
is just the thing to get the bath-man to administer to a 
friend who has come down to visit one, as a slight taste of 
the quality of the Water Cure. 

One pleasing result of the treatment is, that the skin is 
made beautifully soft and white. Another less pleasing 
circumstance is, that when there is any impurity lurking 
in the constitution, a fortnight's treatment brings on what 
is called a crisis, in which the evil is driven off in the 
form of an eruption all over the body. This result never 
follows unless where the patient has been in a most un- 
healthy state. People who merely need a little bracing 
up need not have the least fear of it. Our own two 
months of water never produced the faintest appearance 
of such a thing. 

Let us sum up the characteristics of the entire systenc 
in the words of Sir E. B. Lytton : — 

The first point which impressed me was the extreme and utter inno^ 



LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 323 

cence of tlie water-cure in skilful hands — in any hands, indeed, not 
thoroughly new to the system. 

The next thing that struck me was the extraordinary ease with wliich, 
under this system, good habits are acquired and bad habits are relin- 
quished. 

That which, thirdly, impressed me, was no less contrary to all my 
preconceived opinions. I had fancied that, whether good or bad, the 
system must be one of great hardship, extremely repugnant and dis- 
agreeable. I wondered at myself to find how soon it became so asso- 
ciated with pleasurable and grateful feelings as to dwell upon the mind 
as one of the happiest passages of existence. 

We have left ourselves no space to say anything of the 
effect of the Water Cure in acute disease. It is said to 
work wonders in the case of gout, and all rheumatic com- 
plaints : the severe suffering occasioned by the former 
vexatious malady is immediately subdued, and the neces- 
sity of colchicum and other deleterious drugs is obviated. 
Fever and inflammation, too, are drawn off by constant 
packing, without being allowed to run their usual course. 
Our readers may find remarkable cures of heart and other 
diseases recorded at pages 24, 72, 114, and 172, of the 
Month at Malvern. We quote the account of one case : — 

I was introduced to a lady, that I might receive her own report of 
her cure. She had been ybr nine years jmralysed, from the waist doivn- 
wards ; pale and emaciated ; and coming to Malvern, she had no idea 
of recovering the use of her limbs, but merely bodily health. In five 
months she became ruddy, and then her perseverance in being packed 
twice every day was rewarded. The returning muscular power was 
advanced to perfect recovery of the f'ee use of her limbs. She grew 
■tout and strong, and now walks ten miles daily. 

We confess we should like to have this story con- 
firmed by some competent authority. It appears to 
verge on the impossible : unless, indeed, the fact was 
that the lady was some nervous, fanciful person, who 
took up a hypochondriac idea that she was paralysed, 



324 LIFE AT THE WATER CURE. 

and got rid of the notion by having her constitution 
braced up. 

We have already said a good deal of the enjoyable 
nature of the water system ; we make a final quotation 
from our military friend : — 

I have given some account of my daily baths, and on reading over 
what I have written, I feel quite ashamed of the coldness of the recital 
of all my delight, the recollection of which makes my mouth water. 
The reader will observe that I am a Scotchman (proverbially a matter 
of-fact race), an old fellow, my enemy would say a slow coach. I migh 
enlarge on my ecstatic delight in my baths, my healthy glow, mj 
light-heartedness, .my feelings of elasticity, which made me fancy « 
could trip along the sward like a patent Vestris. I might go much 
farther, I might indulge in poetic rapture — most unbecoming my ma- 
ture age — and after all, fall far short of the reality. The reader will 
do well to allow a large percentage of omitted ecstatic delineation in 
consequence of want of ardour on the part of the writer. This is in fact 
due to justice. 

See how old patients describe the Water Cure ! This 
is, at all events, a different strain from that of people 
who have been victimized by ordinary quacks and quack 
medicines, and who bestow their imprecations on the 
credulity which has at once ruined their constitutions 
and emptied their pockets. 

We trust we have succeeded in persuading those who 
have glanced over these pages, that the Water Cure is 
by no means the violent thing which they have in all 
probability been accustomed to consider it. There is no 
need for being nervous about going to it. There is 
nothing about it that is half such a shock to the system 
as are blue pill and mercury, purgatives and drastics^ 
leeches and the lancet. Almost every appliance within 
its range is a source of positive enjoyment ; the time spent 
under it is a cheerful holiday to body and mind. We 
take it to be quackery and absurdity to maintain that all 



LIFE AT TILE WATER CUEE. 325 

pocsible diseases can be cured hj the cold water system ; 
but, from our own experience, we believe that the sys- 
tem a?id its concomitants do tend powerfully to brace and 
re-invigorate, when mental exertion has told upon the 
system, and even threatened to break it down. But 
really it is no new discovery that fresh air and water, 
simple food and abundant exercise, change of scene and 
intermission of toil and excitement, tend to brace the 
nerves and give fresh vigour to the limbs. In the only 
respect in which we have any confidence in the Water 
Cure, it is truly no new system at all. We did not 
need Priessnitz to tell us that the fair element which, 
in a hundred forms, makes so great a part of Creation's 
beauty — trembling, crystal-clear, upon the rosebud ; 
gleaming in the sunset river ; spreading, as we see it 
to-day, in the bright blue summer sea ; fleecy-white in 
thfc silent clouds, and gay in the evening rainbow, — 
is the true elixir of health and life, the most exhila- 
rating draught, the most soothing anodyne ; the secret 
of physical enjoyment, and mental buoyancy and vigour. 



CHAPTER XI 
CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL* 



*^ f^^ HERE is a peculiar pleasure in paying a 
;.^^^/Vc^°ft visit to a friend whom you never saw in his 
own house before. Let it not be believed 
that in this world there is much difficulty in 
finding a new sensation. The genial, unaffected, hard- 
wrought man, who does not thinli it fine to appear to 
care nothing for anything, will find a new sensation in 
many quiet places, and in many simple ways. There is 
something fresh and pleasant in arriving at an entirely 
new railway station, in getting out upon a platform on 
which you never before stood; in finding your friend 
standing there looking quite at home in a place quite 
strange to you ; in taking in at a glance the expression 
of the porter who takes your luggage and the clerk who 
receives your ticket, and reading there something of 
their character and their life ; in going outside, and see- 
ing for the first time your friend's carriage, whether the 
stately drag or the humbler dog-cart, and beholding 
horses you never saw before, caparisoned in harness 
heretofore unseen ; in taking your seat upon cushions 

* Finends in Council: a Series of Readings and Discourse thereon. 
A- New Series. Two Volumes. Loudon : John W. Parker and Son, 
West Strand, 1859. 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 327 

hitherto unpressed by you, in seeing your friend take 
the reins, and then in rolling away over a new road, 
under new trees, over new bridges, beside new hedges, 
looking upon new landscapes stretching far away, and 
breaking in upon that latent idea common to all people 
who have seen very little, that they have seen almost 
all the world. Then there is something fresh and pleas- 
ant in driving for the first time up the avenue, in catch- 
ing the first view of the dwelling which is to your friend 
the centre of all the world, in walking up for the first 
time to your chamber (you ought always to arrive at a 
country house for a visit about three quarters of an hour 
before dinner), and then in coming down and finding 
yourself in the heart of his belongings ; seeing his wife 
and children, never seen before ; finding out his favour- 
ite books, and coming to know something of his friends, 
horses, dogs, pigs, and general way of life ; and then 
after ten days, in going away, feeling that you have 
occupied a new place and seen a new phase of life, hence- 
forward to be a possession for ever. 

But it is pleasanter by a great deal to go and pay a 
visit to a friend visited several times (not too frequent- 
ly) before : to arrive at the old railway station, quiet 
and country-like, with trees growing out of the very plat- 
form on which you step ; to see your friend's old face 
not seen for two years ; to go out and discern the old 
drag standing just where you remember it, and to smooth 
down the horses' noses as an old acquaintance ; to dis- 
cover a look of recognition on the man-servant's impas- 
sive face, which at your greeting expands into a pleased 
smile ; to drive away along the old road, recognizing 
cottages and trees ; to come in sight of the house again, 
your friend's conversation and the entire aspect of things 



328 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

bringing up many little remembrances of the past ; to 
look out of your chamber window before dinner and to 
recognize a large beech or oak which you had often re- 
membered when you were far away, and the field be- 
yond, and the hills in the distance, and to know again 
even the pattern of the carpet and the bed curtains ; to go 
down to dinner, and meet the old greeting ; to recognize 
tlie taste of the claret ; to find the children a little bigger, 
a little shy at first, but gradually acknowledging an old 
acquaintance ; and then, when your friend and you are 
left by yourselves, to draw round the fire (such visits are 
generally in September), and enjoy the warm, hearty 
look of the crimson curtains hanging in the self-same 
folds as twenty-four months since, and talk over many 
old things. 

We feel, in opening the new volumes of Friends in 
Council, as we should in going to pay a visit to an old 
friend living in the same pleasant home, and at the same 
pleasant autumnal season in which we visited him before. 
We know what to expect. We know that there may be 
little variations from what we have already found, little 
changes wrought by time ; but, barring great accident or 
disappointment, we know what kind of thing the visit 
will be. And we believe that to many who have read 
with delight the previous volumes of this work, there 
can hardly be any pleasanter anticipation than that of 
more of the same wise, kindly, interesting material which 
they remember. A good many years have passed since 
the first volume of Friends in Council was published ; a 
good many years even since the second : for, the essays 
and discourses now given to the public form the third 
published portion of the work. Continuations of suc- 
cessful works have proverbially proved failures ; the 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 329 

author was his own too successful rival ; and intelligent 
readers, trained to expect much, have generally declared 
that the new production was, if not inferior to its prede- 
cessor, at all events inferior to what its predecessor had 
taught them to look for. But there is no falling off here. 
The writing of essays and conversations, set in a frame- 
work of scenery and incident, and delineating character 
admirably though only incidentally, is the field of litera- 
ture in which the author stands without a rival. No one 
in modern days can discuss a grave subject in a style so 
attractive ; no one can convey so much wisdom with so 
much playfulness and kindhness ; no one can evince so 
much earnestness unalloyed by the least tinge of exag- 
geration. The order of thought which is contained in 
Friends in Council, is quarried from its authors best 
vein. Here, he has come upon what gold-diggers call a 
pocket: and he appears to work it with little effort. 
However difficult it might be for others to write an essay 
and discourse on it in the fashion of this book, we should 
judge that its author does so quite easily. It is no task 
for suns to shine. And it will bring back many pleasant 
remembrances to the minds of many readers, to open 
these new volumes, and find themselves at once in the 
same kindly atmosphere as ever ; to find that the old 
spring is flowing yet. The new series of Friends in 
Council is precisely what the intelligent reader must 
have expected. A thoroughly good writer can never 
surprise us. A writer whom we have studied, mused 
over, sympathized with, can surprise us only by doing 
sometting eccentric, affected, unworthy of himself. The 
more thoroughly we have sympathized with him ; the 
more closely we have marked not only the strong charac- 
teristics which are ah'eady present in what he writes. 



330 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

but those little matters which may be the germs of pes 
sible new characteristics ; the less likely is it that we 
shall be surprised by anything he does or says. It is 
so with the author of Friends in Council. We know 
precisely what to expect from him. We should feel 
aggrieved if he gave us anything else. Of course there 
will be much wisdom and depth of insight ; much strong 
practical sense : there will be playfulness, pensiveness, 
pathos ; great fairness and justice ; much kindness of 
heart; something of the romantic element; and as for 
style, there will be language always free from the least 
trace of affectation ; always clear and comprehensible ; 
never slovenly ; sometimes remarkable for a certain 
simple felicity ; sometimes rising into force and eloquence 
of a very high order: a style, in short, not to be par- 
odied, not to be caricatured, not to be imitated except 
by writing as well. The author cannot sink below our 
expectations ; cannot rise above them. He has already 
written so much, and so many thoughtful readers have 
so carefully studied what he has written, that we know 
the exact length of his tether, and he can say nothing 
lor which we are not prepared. You know exactly what 
to expect in this new work. You could not, indeed, pro- 
duce it ; you could not describe it, you could not say be- 
forehand what it will be ; but when you come upon it, 
you will feel that it is just what you were sure it would 
be. You were sure, as you are sure what will be the 
flavour of the fruit on your pet apple-tree, which you 
have tasted a hundred times. The tree is quite certain 
to produce that fruit which you remember and like so 
well ; it is its nature to do so. And the analogy holds 
further. For, as little variations in weather or in the 
treatment of the tree — a dry season, or some special 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 331 

application to the roots — may somewhat alter the fruit, 
though all within narrow limits ; so may change of cir- 
cumstances a little affect an author's writings, but only 
within a certain range. The apple-tree may produce 
a somewhat different apple ; but it will never produce 
an orange, neither will it yield a crab. 

So here we are again among our old friends. Wo 
should have good reason to complain had Dunsford, 
Ellesmere, or Milverton been absent ; and here they are 
again just as before. Possibly they are even less 
changed than they should have been after thirteen or 
fourteen years, considering what their age was at our 
first introduction to them. Dunsford, the elderly country 
parson, once fellow and tutor of his college, still reports 
the conversations of the friends ; Milverton and Elles- 
mere are, in their own way, as fond of one another as 
ever; Dunsford is still judicious, kind, good, somewhat 
slow, as country parsons not unnaturally become ; Elles- 
mere is still sarcastic, keen, clever, with much real world- 
ly wisdom and much affected cynicism overlying a kind 
and honest heart. As for Milverton, we should judge 
that in him the author of the work has unconsciously 
shown us himself; for assuredly the great character- 
istics of the author of Friends in Council must be that 
he is laborious, thoughtful, generous, well-read, much in 
earnest, eager for the welfare of his fellow-men, deeply 
interested in politics and in history, impatient of puritan- 
ical restraints, convinced of the substantial importance 
of amusement. Milverton, we gather, still lives at his 
country-seat in Hampshire, and takes some interest in 
rustic concerns. Ellesmere continues to rise at the bar ; 
since w^e last met him has been Solicitor- General, and is 
now Sir John, a member of the House of Commonsg 



332 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

and in the fair way to a Chief Justiceship. The clergy« 
man's quiet life is going on as before. But in addition 
to our three old friends we find an elderly man, one Mr. 
Midhurst, whose days have been spent in diplomacy, 
who is of a melancholy disposition, and takes gloomy 
views of life, but who is much skilled in cookery, very 
fat, and very fond of a good dinner. Also Mildred and 
Blanche, Milverton's cousins, two sisters, have grown up 
into young women of very different character : and they 
take some share in the conversations, and, as we shall 
hereafter see, a still more important part in the action of 
the story. We feel that we are in the midst of a real group 
of actual human beings: — just what third-rate historians 
fail to make us feel when telling us of men and women 
who have actually lived. The time and place are very 
varied ; but through the greater portion of the book the 
party are travelling over the Continent. A further vari- 
ation from the plan of the former volumes, besides the 
introduction of new characters, is, that while all the essays 
in the preceding series were written by Milverton, we 
have now one by Ellesmere, one by Dunsford, and one 
by Mr. Midhurst, each being in theme and manner very 
characteristic of its author. But, as heretofore, the writer 
of the book holds to his principle of the impolicy of 'jad- 
ing anything too far/ and thinks with Bacon that ' it is 
good, in discourse and speech of conversation, to vary and 
intermingle speech of the present occasion with arguments, 
tales with reasons, asking of questions with telling of opin- 
ions, and jest with earnest.* The writer likewise holds 
by that system which his own practice has done so much 
to recommend — of giving locality and time to all abstract 
thought, and thus securing in the case of the majority of 
readers an interest and a reality in no other way to be 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 333 

attained. Admirable as are the essays contained in the 
work, but for their setting in something of a story, and 
their vivification by being ascribed to various characters, 
and described as read and discussed in various scenes, 
they would interest a very much smaller class of readers 
than now they do. No doubt mucii of the skill of (he 
dramatist is needed to secure this souce of interest. It 
can be secured only where we feel that the characters are 
living men and women, and the attempt to secure it haa 
often proved a miserable failure. But it is here that the 
author of Friends in Council succeeds so well. Not only 
do we know precisely what Dunsford, Milverton, and El- 
lesmere are like ; we know exactly what they ought and 
what they ought not to say. The author ran a risk in re- 
producing those old friends. We had a right to expect in 
each of them a certain idiosyncrasy ; and it is not easy to 
maintain an individuality which does not dwell in mere 
caricature and exaggeration, but in the truthful traits of 
actual life. We feel we have a vested interest in the 
characters of the three friends : not even their author has 
the right essentially to alter them ; we should feef it an 
injury if he did. But he has done what he intended. 
Here we have the selfsame men. Not a word is said by 
one of them that ought to have been said by another. 
And here it may be remarked, that any one who is well 
read in the author's writings, will not fail here and there 
to come upon what will appear familiar to him. Various 
thoughts, views, and even expressions, occur which the 
author has borrowed from himself. It is easy to be seen 
that in all this there is no conscious repetition, but that 
veins of thought and feeling long entertained have cropped 
out to the surface again. 

We do not know whether or not the readers of Friendi 



834 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

in Council will be startled at finding that these voliimeg 
show us the grave Milverton and the sarcastic Ellesmere 
in the capacity of lovers, and leave thera in the near 
prospect of being married — Ellesmere to the bold and 
dashing Mildred ; Milverton to the quiet Blanche. The 
gradual tending of things to this conclusion forms the 
main action of the book. The incidents are of the sim-^ 
plest character: there is a plan but no plot, except as 
regards these marriages. Wearied and jaded with work 
at home, the three friends of the former volumes resolve 
on going abroad for awhile. Midhurst and the girls ac- 
company them : and the story is simply that at various 
places to which they came, one friend read an essay or 
uttered a discourse (for sometimes the essays are supposed 
to have been given extempore), and the others talked about 
it. But the gradual progress of matters towards the wed^ 
dings (it may be supposed that the happy couples are this 
September on their wedding tours) is traced with much 
skill and much knowledge of the fashion in which such 
things go ; and it supplies a peculiar interest to the work, 
which will probably tide many young ladies over essays 
on such grave subjects as Government and Despotism, 
Still, we confess that we had hardly regarded Ellesmere 
and Milverton as marrying men. We had set them down 
as too old, grave, and wise, for at least the preliminary 
stages. We have not forgotten that Dunsford told us * 
that in the summer of 1847 he supposed no one but himself 
would speak of Milverton and Ellesmere as young men ; 
ai.d now of course they are twelve years older, and yet 
about to be married to girls whom we should judge to be 
dbout two or three and twenty. And although it is not 
»n unnatural thing that Ellesmere should have got over 
* Fiiends in Council, Introduction to Book II. 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 335 

his affection for the German Gretchen, whose story is so 
exqui.-^itely told in the Companions of my Solitude., we find 
it harder to reconcile Milverton's marriage with our pre- 
vious impression of him. Yet perhaps all this is truthful 
to life. It is not an unnatural thing that a man who for 
years has settled down into the belief that he has faded, 
and that for him the romantic interest has gone from life, 
should upon some fresh stimulus gather himself up from 
that idea, and think that life is not so far gone after all. 
Who has not on a beautiful September day sometimes 
chidden himself for having given in to the impression that 
the season was so far advanced, and clung to the belief 
that it is almost summer still ? 

In a preliminary Address to the Reader, the author ex- 
plains that the essay on War, which occupies a considera- 
ble portion of the first volume, was written some time 
ago, and intends no allusion to recent events in Europe. 
The Address contains an earnest protest against the main- 
tenance of large standing armies ; it is eloquent and for- 
cible, and it affords additional proof how much the author 
has thought upon the subject of war, and how deeply he 
feels upon it. Then comes the Introduction proper, writ- 
ten, of course, by Dunsford. It sets out with the praise 
of conversation, and then it sums up what the * Friend^* 
have learned in their longer experience of life : — 

"We ' Friends in Council ' are of course somewhat older men than 
•when we first began to meet in friendly conclave; and I have observed 
as mdn go on in life they are less and less inclined to be didactic. 
They have found out that nothing is, didactically speaking, true. They 
long for exceptions, modifications, allowances. A boy is clear, sharp, 
decisive in his talk. He would have this. He would do that. He 
hates this; he loves that: and bis loves or his hatreds admit of no ex- 
ception. He is sure that the one thing is quite right, and the other 
luite wrong. He is not troubled with doubts. He knows. 



336 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

I see now why, as men go on in life, they delight in anecdotes. 
These tell so much, and argue, or pronounce directly, so little. 

The three friends were sauntering one day in Milver- 
ton's garden, all feeling much overwrought and very 
stupid. Ellesmere proposed that for a little recreation 
they should go abroad. Milverton pleads his old hor- 
ror of picture-galleries, and declares himself content with 
the unpainted pictures he has in his mind : — 

It is curious, but I have been painting two companion pictures ever 
since we have been walking about in the garden. One consists of some 
dilapidated garden architecture, with overgrown foliage of all kinds, 
not forest foliage, but that of rare trees such as the Sumach and Japan- 
cedar, which should have been neglected for thirty years. Here and 
there, instead of the exquisite parterre, there should be some miserable 
patches of potatoes and beans, and some squalid clothes hung out to 
dry. Two ill-dressed children, but of delicate features, should be play- 
ing about an ugly neglected pool that had once been the basin to the 
fountain. But the foliage should be the chief thing, gaunt, grotesque, 
rare, beautiful, like an unkempt, uncared-for, lovely mountain girl 
Underneath this picture: — ' Property in the country, in chancery.' 

The companion picture, of course, should be: — ' Property in town, 
in chancery.' It should consist of two or three hideous, sordid, window- 
broken, rat-deserted, paintless, blackened houses, that should look as 
if they had once been too good company for the neighbourhood, and 
had met with a fall in life, not deplored by any one. At the opposite 
corner should be a flaunting new gin-palace. I do not know whether 
I should have the heart to bring any children there, but I would if I 
could. 

The reader will discern that the author of Friends in 
Council has lost nothing of his power of picturesque 
description, and nothing of his horror of the abuses and 
cruelties of the law. And the passage may serve to 
remind of the touching, graphic account of the country 
residence of a reduced family in the Companions of my 
Solitude.* Ellesmere assures Milverton that he shall 
not be asked to see a single picture ; and that if Milver- 

* Chap. iv. 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 337 

ton will bring Blanche and Mildred with him, he will 
himself go and see seven of the chief sewers in seven of 
the chief towns. The appeal to the sanitarian's feelings 
is successful ; the bargain is struck ; and we next find the 
entire party saunterhig, after an early German dinner, on 
the terrace of some small town on the Rhine, — Dunsford 
forgets which. Milverton, Ellesmere, and Mr. Midhurst 
are smoking, and we commend their conversation on the 
soothing power of tobacco to the attention of the Dean of 
Carlisle. Dean Close, by a bold figure, calls tobacco a 
* gorging fiend.' Milverton holds that smoking is per- 
haps the greatest blessing that we owe to the discovery of 
America. He regards its value as abiding in its power 
to soothe under the vexations and troubles of life. While 
smoking, you cease to live almost wholly in the future, 
which miserable men for the most part do. The question 
arises, whether the sorrows of the old or the young are 
the most acute ? It is admitted that the sorrows of 
children are very overwhelming for the time, but they 
are not of that varied, perplexed, and bewildering nature 
which derives much consolation from smoke. Ellesmere 
suggests, very truthfully, that the feeling of shame for 
having done anything wrong, or even ridiculous, causes 
most acute misery to the young. And, indeed, who does 
flot know, from personal experience, that the sufferings 
of children of even four or five years old are often quite 
«s dreadful as those which come as the sad heritage of 
after years ? We look back on them now, and smile at 
them as we think how small were their causes. Well, 
they were great to us. We were little creatures then, 
*nd little things were relatively very great. * The sports 
of childhood satisfy the child : ' the sorrows of childhood 

overwhelm the poor little thing. We think a sympathetic 
22 



838 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

reader would hardly read without a tear as well as a 
smile, an incident in the early life of Patrick Eraser Tyt- 
ler, recorded in his recently published biography. When 
five years old he got hold of the gun of an elder brother, 
and broke the spring of its lock. What anguish the little 
boy must have endured, what a crushing sense of having 
caused an irremediable evil, before he sat down and printed 
m great letters the following epistle to his brother, the 
owner of the gun — ' Oh, Jamie, think no more of guns, 
for the main-spring of that is broken, and my heart is 
broken 1 ' Doubtless the poor little fellow fancied that for 
all the remainder of his life he would never feel as he had 
felt before he touched the unlucky weapon. Doubtless 
the little heart was just as full of anguish as it could hold. 
Looking back over many years, most of us can remember 
a child crushed and overwhelmed by some sorrow which 
it thought could never be got over, and can feel for our 
early self as though sympathizing with another person- 
ality. 

The upshot of the talk which began with tobacco was, 
that Milverton was prevailed upon to write an essay on 
a subject of universal interest to all civilized beings, an 
essay on Worry. He felt, indeed, that he should be writ- 
ing it at a disadvantage ; for an essay on worry can be 
written with full effect only by a thoroughly worried 
man. There was no worry at all in that quiet little 
town on the Rhine ; they had come there to rest, and 
there was no intruding duty that demanded that it should 
be attended to. And probably there is no respect in 
which that great law of the association of ideas, that like 
suggests like, holds more strikingly true than in the pow- 
er of a present state of mind, or a present state of out- 
ward circumstances, to bring up vividly before us all 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 333 

Buch states in our past history. We are depressed, we 
are worried : and when we look back, all our departed 
dajs of worry and depression appear to start up and 
press themselves upon our view to the exclusion of any- 
thing else, so that. we are ready to think that we have 
never been otherwise than depressed and worried all our 
life. But when more cheerful times come, they suggest 
only such times of cheerfulness, and no effort will bring 
back the worry vividly as when we felt it. It is not self- 
ishness or heartlessness ; it is the result of an inevitable 
law of mind that people in happy circumstances should 
resolutely believe that it is a happy world after all ; for 
looking back, and looking around, the mind refuses to 
take distinct note of anything that is not somewhat akin 
to its present state. Milverton wrote an excellent essay 
on Worry on the evening of that day ; but he might pos- 
sibly have written a better one at Worth- Ashton on the 
evening of a day on which he had discovered that his 
coachman was stealing the corn provided for the carriage 
horses, or galloping these animals about the country at the 
dead of night to see his friends. We must have a score of 
little annoyances stinging us at once to have the undiluted 
sense of being worried. And probably a not wealthy 
man, residing in the country, and farming a few acres of 
ground by means of somewhat unfaithful and neglectful 
servants, may occasionally find so many things going 
wrong at once, and so many little things demanding to 
be attended to at once, that he shall experience worry 
in as high a degree as it can be felt by mortal. Thus 
truthfully does Milverton's essay begin : — 

The great characteristic of modern life is Worry. 
If the Pagan religion still prevailed, the new goddess, in whose 
honour temples would be raised and to whom statues would be erected 



340 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

in all the capitals of the world, would be the goddess Worn'-. Lon' 
don would be the chief seat and centre of her sway. A gorgeous 
statue, painted and enriched after the manner of the ancients (for 
there is no doubt that they adopted this practice, however barbarous 
it may seem to us), would be set up to the goddess in the West-end 
of the town: another at Temple Bar, of less ample dimensions and 
less elaborate decoration, would receive the devout homage of wor- 
shippers who came to attend their lawj^ers in that quarter of the 
town: while a statue, on which the cunning sculptor should have 
impressed the marks of haste, anxiety, and agitation, would be sharp- 
ly glanced up at, with as much veneration as they could afford to 
give to it, by the eager men of business in the City. 

The goddess Worry, however, would be no local deity, worshipi>ed 
merely in some great town, like Diana of the Ephesians; but, in the 
market-places of small rural communities, her statue, made somewhat 
like a vane, and shifting with every turn of the wind, would be re- 
garded with stolid awe by anxious votaries belonging to what is 
called the farming interest. Familiar too and household would be 
her worship; and in many a snug home, where she might be imagined 
to have little potency, small and ugly images of her would be found 
as household gods — the Lares and Penates — near to the threshold, 
and ensconced above the glowing hearth. 

The poet, alwaj^s somewhat inclined to fable, speaks of Love as 
ruling 

The court, the camp, the grove. 
And men below, and heaven above; 

but the dominion of Love, as compared with that of Worry, would be 
found, in the number of subjects, as the Macedonian to the Persian — 
in extent of territory, as the county of Rutland to the empire of 
Russia. 

Not verbally accurate is the quotation from the Lay 
of the Last Minstrel, we may remark ; but we may take 
it for granted that no reader who has exceeded the age 
of twenty-five will fail to recognize in this half-playful 
and half-earnest passage the statement of a sorrowful 
fact. And the essay goes on to set forth many of the 
causes of modern worry with all the knowledge and 
earnestness of a man who has seen much of life, and 
thought much upon what he has seen. The author's 



COJCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 341 

eympathies are not so much with the grand trials of his- 
torical personages, such as Charles V., Columbus, and 
Napoleon, as with the lesser trials and cares of ordinary 
men ; and in the following paragraph we discern at once 
the cociviction of a clear head and the feeling of a kind 
heart : — 

And the ordinary citizen, even of a well-settled state, who, with 
narrow means, increasing taxation, approaching age, failing health, 
and augmenting cares, goes plodding about his daily work thickly 
bestrewed with trouble and worry (all the while, perhaps, the thought 
of a sick child at home being in the background of his mind), may 
also, like any hero of renown in the midst of his world-wide and 
world -attracting fortune, be a beautiful object for our sympathy. 

There is indeed no more common error, than to es- 
timate the extent of suffering by the greatness of the 
cause which have produced it ; we mean their greatness 
as regards the amount of notice which they attract. The 
anguish of an emperor who has lost his empire, is prob- 
ably not one whit greater than that of a poor lady who 
loses her little means in a swindling Bank, and is obliged 
to take away her daughter from school and to move into 
an inferior dwelling. Nor is it unworthy of remark, in 
thinking of sympathy with human beings in suffering, 
that scrubby-looking little men, with weak hair and awk- 
ward demeanour, and not in the least degree gentleman- 
like, may through domestic worry and bereavement un- 
dergo distress quite as great as heroic individuals six feet 
four inches in height, with a large quantity of raven 
hair, and with eyes of remarkable depth of expression. 
It is probable, too, that in the lot of ordinary men a 
ceaseless and countless succession of little worries does 
a great deal more to fret away the happiness of life than 
is done by the few great and overwhelming misfortunea 
srhich happen at long intervals. You lose your child, 



342 concerining friends in council. 

and your sorrow is overwhelming ; but it is a sorrow on 
which before many months you look back with a sad 
yet pleasing interest, and it is a sorrow which you know 
you are the better for having felt. But petty unfaithful- 
ness, carelessness, and stupidity on the part of your ser- 
vants ; little vexations and cross-accidents in your daily 
life ; the ceaseless cares of managing a household and 
family, and possibly of making an effort to maintain ap- 
pearances with very inadequate means ; — all those little 
annoying things which are not misfortune but worry, ef- 
fectually blister away the enjoyment of life while they 
last, and serve no good end in respect to mental and 
moral discipline. ' Much tribulation,' deep and dignified 
sorrow, may prepare men for * the kingdom of God ; * 
but ceaseless worry, for the most part, does but sour the 
temper, jaundice the views, and embitter and harden the 
heart. 

' The grand source of worry,' says our author, ' com- 
pared with which perhaps all others are trivial, lies in the 
complexity of human affairs, especially in such an era ot" 
civilization as our own.' There can be no doubt of it. 
In these modern days, we are encumbered and weighed 
down with the appliances, physical and moral, which 
have come to be regarded as essential to the carrying 
forward of our life. We forget how many thousands of 
separate items and articles were counted up, as having 
been used, some time w^ithin the last few years, by a din- 
ner-party of eighteen persons, at a single entertainment. 
What incalculable worry in the procuring, the keeping 
in order, the using, the damage, the storing up, of that 
enormous complication of china, glass, silver, and steel ! 
We can w^ell imagine how a man of simple tastes and 
<juiet disposition, worried even to death by his large 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 343 

house, his numerous servants and horses, his quantities 
of furniture and domestic appliances, all of a perishable 
nature, and all constantly wearing out and going wrong 
in various degrees, might sigh a wearied sigh for the 
simplicity of a hermit's cave and a hermit's fare, and for 
*one perennial suit of leather.' Such a man as the 
Duke of Buccleuch, possessing enormous estates, op- 
pressed by a deep feeling of responsibility, and strug- 
gling to maintain a personal supervision of all his intri- 
cate and multitudinous belongings, mrst day by day un- 
dergo an amount of worry which the philosopher would 
probably regard as poorly compensated by a dukedom 
and three hundred thousand a year. He would be a 
noble benefactor of the human race who should teach 
men how to combine the simplicity of the savage life 
with the refinement and the cleanliness of the civilized. 
We fear it must be accepted as an unquestionable fact, 
that the many advantages of civilization are to be ob- 
tained only at the price of countless and ceaseless worry. 
Of course, we must all sometimes sigh for the woods and 
the wigwam ; but the feeling is as vain as that of the 
psalmist's wearied aspiration, ' Oh that I had wings like 
a dove : then would I flee away and be at rest ! ' Our 
author says. 

The great Von Humboldt went into the cottages of South Ameri- 
can Indians, and, amongst an unwrinkled people, could with difficulty 
discern who was the father and who was the son, when he saw the 
family assembled together. 

And how plainly the smooth, cheerful face of the sav- 
age testified to the healthfulness, in a physical sense^ of 
ft life devoid of worry ! If you would see the reverse 
of the medal, look at the anxious faces, the knit brows, 
and the bald heads, of the twenty or thirty greatest mer- 



344 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

chants whom you will see on the Exchange of Glasgow 
or of Manchester. Or you may find more touching 
proof of the ageing effect of worry, in the careworn face 
of the man of thirty with a growing family and an un- 
certain income ; or the thin figure and bloodless cheek 
which testify to the dull weight ever resting on the heart 
f the poor widow who goes out washing, and leaves her 
ittle children in her poor garret under the care of one 
of eight years old. But still, the cottages of Humboldt*3 
*un wrinkled people* were, we have little doubt, much 
infested with vermin, and possessed a pestilential atmos- 
phere ; and the people's freedom from care did but testify 
to their ignorance, and to their lack of moral sensibility. 
We must take worry, it is to be feared, along with civil- 
ization. As you go down in the scale of civilization, 
you throw off worry by throwing off the things to which 
it can adhere. And in these days, in which no man 
would seriously think of preferring the savage life, with 
its dirt, its stupidity, its listlessness, its cruelty, the good 
we may derive from that life, or any life approximating 
to it, is mainly that of a sort of moral alterative and 
tonic. The thing itself would not suit us, and would 
do us no good ; but we may be the better for musing 
upon it. It is like a refreshing shower-bath, it is like 
breathing a cool breeze after the atmosphere of a hot- 
house, to dwell for a little, with half-closed eyes, upon 
pictures which show us all the good of the unworried 
life, and which say nothing of all the evil. We know 
the thing is vain : we know it is but an idle fancy ; but 
still it is pleasant and refreshful to think of such a life as 
Byron has sketched as the life of Daniel Boone. Not 
in misanthropy, but from the strong preference of a for- 
est life, did the Kentucky backwoodsman keep many 



CONCERNING FEIENDS IN COUNCIL. 345 

scores of miles ahead of tlie current of European popu- 
lation setting onwards to the West. We shall feel much 
indebted to any reader who will tell us where to find 
anything more delightful than the following stanzas, to 
read after an essay on modern worry : — 

He was not all alone : around him grew 

A sylvan tribe of children of the chase ; 
Whose young, unwakened world was ever new, 

Nor sin, nor sorrow, yet had left a trace 
On her unwrinkled brow ; nor could you view 

A frown on Nature's or on human face : 
The free-born forest found and kept them fi^e, 
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 

And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, 
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions : 

Because their thoughts had never been the prey 

Of care or gain : the green woods were their portions. 

No sinking spirits told them they grew grey, 
No fashion made them apes of her distortions ; 

Simple they were, not savage, and their rifles, 

Though very true, were yet not used for trifles. 

Motion was in their days, rest in their slumbers, 
And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil : 

Nor yet too many, nor too few their numbers, 

Corruption could not make their hearts her soil : 

The lust which stings, the splendour which encumbers, 
"With the free foresters divide no spoil : 

Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes, 

Of this unsighing people of the woods. 

The essay on Worry is followed by an interesting con- 
versation on the same subject, at the close of which we 
are heartily obliged to Blanche for suggesting one pleas- 
ant thought; to wit, that children for the most part 
escape that sad infliction ; it is the special heritage 
:>f comparatively mature years. And Milverton re- 
plies : — 



346 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

Yes; I ha^e never been more struck Avith that than when observing 
a family in the middle class of life going to the sea-side. There is the 
anxious mother wondering how they shall manage to stow away all 
the children when they get down. Visions of damp sheets oppress 
her. The cares of packing sit upon her soul. Doubts of what will 
become of the house when it is left, are a constant drawback from her 
thoughts of enjoyment; and she confides to the partner of her cares 
how willingly, if it were not for the dear children, she would stay at 
home. He, poor man, has not an easy time of it. He is meditating 
over the expense, and how it is to be provided for. He knows, if he 
has any knowledge of the world, that the said expense will somehow 
or other exceed any estimate he and his wife have made of it. He is 
studying the route of the journey, and is perplexed by the various 
modes of going. This one would be less expensive, but would take 
more time; and then time always turns into expense on a journey. 
In a word, the old birds are as full of care and trouble as a hen with 
ducklings; but the young birds! Some of them have never seen the 
sea before, and visions of unspeakable delight fill their souls — vis- 
ions that will almost be fulfilled. The journey, and the cramped 
accommodation, and tlie packing, and the everything out of place, 
are matters of pure fun and anticipated joy to them. 

We have lingered all this while upon the first chapter 
of the work : the second contains an essay and conversa- 
tion on War.^ Of this chapter we shall say no more than 
that it is earnest and sound in its views, and especially 
worthy of attentive consideration at the present time. 
The third chapter is one which will probably be turned 
to with interest by many readers ; it bears the taking 
title of A Love Story. Dunsford, a keen though quiet 
observer, has discovered that Ellesmere has grown fond 
of Mildred, though the lawyer was not likely to disclose 
his love. Dunsford suspects that Mildred's affections ar\i 
Bet on Milverton, as he has little doubt those of Blanchb 
Rre. Both girls are very loving to Dunsford, whom 
they call their uncle, though he is no relation, and tie 
old clergyman determines to have an explanation with 
Mildred. He manages to walk alone with her througli 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 347 

the unguarded orchards wlilcli lie along the Rhine; and 
there, somewhat abruptly, he begins to moralize on the 
grand passion. Mildred remarks what a happy woman 
she would have been whom Dunsford had loved ; when 
the lucky thought strikes him that he would tell her hid 
ovwi story, never yet told to any one. And then he tells 
it, very simply and very touchingly. Like most true 
stories of the kind, it has little incident ; but it constituted 
the romance, not yet outlived, of the old gentleman's 
existence. He and a certain Alice were brought up to- 
gether. Like many of the most successful students, 
Dunsford hated study, and was devoted to music and 
poetry, to nature and art. But he knew his only chance 
of winning Alice was to obtain some success in life, and 
he devoted himself to study. Who does not feel for the 
old man recalling the past, and, as he remembered those 
laborious days, saying to the girl by his side, " Always 
reverence a scholar, my dear ; if not for the scholarship, 
at least for the suffering and the self-denial which have 
been endured to gain the scholar's proficiency." His 
only pleasure was in correspondence with Alice. He 
succeeded at last. He took his degree, being nearly the 
first man of his year in both of the great subjects of ex- 
amination ; and he might now come home with some hope 
of having made a beginning of fortune. A gay young 
fellow, a cousin of Alice, came to spend a few days ; and 
of course this lively, thoughtless youth, without an effort, 
carried off the prize of all poor Dunsford's toils. You 
never win the thing on which your heart is set and your 
life staked ; it falls to some one else who cares very little 
about it. It is poor compensation that you get something 
you care little for which would have made the happiness 
of anothei man. Dunsford discovers one evening, in a 
walk with Alice, the frustration of all his hopes : — 



848 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCLL. 

Alice and I were alone again, and we walked out together in the 
evening. We spoke of my future hopes and prospects. I remember 
that I was emboldened to press her arm. She returned the pressure, 
and for a moment there never was, perhaps, a happier man. Had I 
known more of love, I should have known that this evident return of 
affection was anything but a good sign ; " and," continued she, in the 
unconnected manner that you women sometimes speak, " I am so glad 
that you love dear Henry. Oh, if we could but come and live near 
you when you get a curacy, how happy we should all be." This short 
sentence was sufficient. There was no need of more explanation. I 
knew all that had happened, and felt as if I no longer trod upon the 
finn earth, for it seemed a quicksand under me. 

The agony of that dull evening, the misery of that long night I T 
have sometimes thought that unsuccessful love is almost too great a 
burden to be put upon such a poor creature as man. But He knows 
best; and it must have been intended, for it is so common. 

The next day I remember I borrowed Henry's horse, and rode madly 
about, bounding through woods (I who had long forgotten to ride) and 
galloping over open downs. If the animal had not been wiser and 
more sane than I was, we should have been dashed to pieces many 
tinies. And so by sheer exhaustion of body I deadened the misery of 
my mind, and looked upon their happy state with a kind of stupefac- 
tion. In a few days I found a pretext for quitting my home, and I 
never saw your mother again, for it was your mother, Mildred, and 
you are not like her, but like your father, and still I love you. But 
the great wound has never been healed. It is a foolish thing, perhaps, 
that any man should so doat upon a woman, that he should never 
afterwards care for any other, but so it has been with me ; and you 
cannot wonder that a sort of terror should come over me when I see 
anybody in love, and when I think that his or her love is not likely to 
be returned. 

Who would have thought that Dunsford, with his gait- 
ers, lying on the grass listening cheerfully to the lively 
talk of his two friends, or sitting among his bees repeat- 
ing Virgil to himself, or going about among his parish- 
ioners, the ideal of prosaic content and usefulness, had 
still in him this store of old romance ? In asking the 
question, all we mean is to remark an apparent incon- 
eistency: we have no doubt at all of the philosophic 



CONGEENING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 349 

truth of the representation. Probably it is only in the 
finer natures that such early fancies linger with apprecia- 
ble effect. We do not forget the perpetually repeated 
declarations of Mr. Thackeray ; we did not read Mr, 
Giljils Love Story for nothing ; we remember the very 
absurd incident which is told of Dr. Chalmers, who in 
Lis last years testified his remembrance of an early sweet- 
heart by sticking his card with two wafers behind a 
wretched little silhouette of her. And it is conceivable 
that the tenderest and most beautiful reminiscences of a 
love of departed days may linger with a man who has 
gi'own grey, fat, and even snuffy. But it is only in the 
case of remarkably tidy, neat, and clever old gentlemen 
that such feelings are likely to attract much sympathy 
from their juniors. Possibly this world has more of such 
lingering romance than is generally credited. Possibly 
with all but very stolid and narrow natures, no very 
strong feeling goes without leaving some trace. 

Pain and grief 
Are transitory things no less than joy; 
And though they leave us not the men we were^ 
Yet they do leave us. 

Possibly it is not without some little stir of heart that 
most thoughtful aged persons can revisit certain spots, or 
see certain days return. And the affection which would 
have worn itself down into dull common-place in success, 
by being disappointed and frustrated, lives on in memory 
with diminished vividness but with increasing beauty, 
which the test of actual fact can never make prosaic. 
Dunsford tells Mildred what was his great inducement to 
make this continental tour. Not the Rhine ; not the es- 
says nor the conversations of his friends. At the Palace 
of the Luxemburg there is a fine picture, called Les illu- 



350 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

iions perdues. It is one of the most affecting pictures 
Dunsford ever saw. But that is not its peculiar aierit. 
One girl in the picture is the image of what Alice was. 

The chief thing I had to look forward to in this journey we are mak* 
ing was, that we might return by way of Paris, and that I might see 
that picture again. You must contrive that we do return that way 
Ellesmere will do anything to please you, and Milverton is alway 
perfectly indifferent as to where he goes, so that he is not asked to se 
works of art, or to accompany a party of sight-seers to a cathedral* 
We will go and see this picture together once ; and once I must see it 
alone. 

And a very touching sight it would be to one who 
knew the story, the grey-haired old clergyman looking, 
for a long while, at that young face. It would be indeed 
a contrast, the aged man, and the youthful figure in the 
picture. Dunsford never saw Alice again after his early 
disappointment : he never saw her as she grew matronly 
and then old ; and so, though now in her grave, she re- 
mained in his memory the same young thing forever. 
The years which had made him grow old, had wrought 
not the slightest change upon her. And Alice, old and 
dead, was the same on the canvas still. 

Dunsford's purpose in telling his love-story, was to 
caution Mildred against falling in love with Milverton. 
She told him there was no danger. Once, she frankly 
said, she had long struggled with her feelings, not only 
from natural pride, but for the sake of Blanche, who loved 
Milverton better and would be less able to control her 
love. But she had quite got over the struggle ; and 
though now intensely sympathizing with her cousin, she 
felt she never could resolve to marry him. So the con- 
versation ended satisfactorily ; and then a short sen- 
tence shows us a scene, beautiful, vivid, and com- 
plete : — 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 351 

We walked home silently amidst the mellow orchards glowing rud- 
dilj in the rays of the setting sun. 

The next chapter contains an Essay and conversation 
on Criticism : but its commencement shows us Dunsford 
still employed in the interests of his friends. He tells 
Milverton that Blanche is growing fond of him. We can 
hardly give Milverton credit for sincerity or judgment in 
being " greatly distressed and vexed." For once, he way 
shamming. All middle-aged men are much flattered and 
pleased with the admiration of young girls. Milverton 
declared that the thing must be put a stop to ; that " the 
idea of a young and beautiful girl throwing her affections 
away upon a faded widower like himself, was absurd." 
However, as the days went on, Milverton began to be 
extremely attentive to Blanche ; asked her opinion about 
things quite beyond her comprehension ; took long walks 
with her, and assured Dunsford privately that " Blanche 
had a great deal more in her than most people supposed, 
and that she w^as becoming an excellent companion." 
Who does not recognize the process by which clever men 
persuade themselves into the belief that they are doing a 
judicious thing in marrying stupid women ? 

The chapter which follows that on Criticism^ con- 
tains a conversation on Biography, full of interesting 
suggestions which our space renders it impossible for 
us to quote ; but we cannot forego the pleasure of ex- 
tracting the following paragraphs. It is Milverton who 
Bpeaks : — 

During Walter's last holidays, one morning after breakfast he took 
a walk with me. I saw something was on the boy's mind. At last 
he suddenly asked me, " Do sons often write the lives of fathers? " — 
"Often," 1 replied, " but I do not think they are the best kind of biog- 
raphers, for you see, Walter, sons cannot well tell the faultsand weak- 
nesses of their father?, and so filial biographies are often rather insipid 



352 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

performances." — "I don't know about that," he said, *'I think I 
could write yours. I have made it already into chapters." " Now 
then, my boy," I said, "begin it: let us have the outline at least." 
Walter then commenced his biography. 

" The first chapter," he said, " should be you and I and Henrj' walk- 
mg amongst the trees and settling which should be cut down, and 
which should be transplanted." "A very pretty chapter," I said, 
**and a great deal might be made of it." " The second chapter," he 
continued, " should be your going to the farm, and talking to the pigs." 
*' Abo a very good chapter, my dear." " The third chapter," he said, 
after a little thought, *' should be your friends. I would describe them 
all, and what they could do." There, you see, EUesmere, you would 
come in largely, especially as to what you could do. " An excellent 
chapter," I exclaimed, and then of course I broke out into some pater- 
nal admonition about the choice of friends, which I know will have no 
effect lyhatever, but still one cannot help uttering these paternal ad- 
monitions. 

" Now then," I said, " for chapter four." Here "Walter paused, and 
looked about him vaguely for a minute or two. At length he seemed 
to have got hold of the right idea, for he burst out with the words, 
" My going back to school; " and that, it seemed, was to be the end 
of the biography. 

Now, was there ever so honest a biographer? His going back to 
school was the '* be-all and end-all here " with him, and he resolved it 
should be the same with his hero, and with everybody concerned in 
the story. 

Then see what a pleasant biographer the boy is ! He does not drag 
his hero down through the vale of life, amidst declining fortune, break- 
ir.g health, dwindling away of friends, and the usual dreariness of the 
last few stages. Neither does the biography end with the death of his 
hero ; and by the way, it is not very pleasant to have one's children 
contemplating one's death, even for the sake of writing one's life; but 
tte biographer brings the adventures of his hero to an end by his own 
goiiig back to school. How delightful it would be if most biographers 
planned their works after Walter's fashion: just gave a picture of their 
hero at his farm, or his business; then at his pleasure, as Waiter 
brought me amongst my trees ; then, to show what manner of man he 
was, gave some description of his friends ; and concluded by giving an 
account of their own going back to school — a conclusion that is 
greatly to be desired for many of them. 

When we begin to copy a passage from this work, we 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 353 

find it veiy difficult to stop. But the thoughtful reader 
will not need to have it pointed out to him how much 
sound wisdom is conveyed in that playful form. And 
here is excellent advice as to the fashion in which men 
may hope to get through great intellectual labour: says 
Ellesmere, — 

I can tell you in a very few words how all work is done. Getting up 
sarly, eating vigorously, saying " No " to intruders resolutely, doing 
one thing at a time, thinking over difficulties at odd times, that is, 
wlien stupid people are talking in the House of Commons, or speaking 
at the Bar, not indulging too much in affections of any kind which 
waste the time and energies, carefully changing the current of your 
thoughts before you go to bed, planning the work of the day in the 
quf /ter of an hour before you get up, playing with children occasion- 
ally, and avoiding fools as much as possible : that is the way to do a 
great deal of work. 

MUverton remarks, with justice, that some practical 
advices as to the way in which a working man might suc- 
ceed in avoiding fools were very much to be desired, in- 
asmuch as that brief direction contains the whole art of 
life ; and suggests with equal justice that the taking of a 
daily bath should be added to EUesmere's catalogue of 
appliances which aid in working. 

We cannot linger upon the remaining pages which 
treat of Biography, nor upon two interesting chapters 
concerning Proverbs. It may be noticed, however, that 
Ellesmere insists that the best proverb in the world is 
the familiar English one, ' Nobody knows where the shoe 
pinches but the wearer ; ' while Milverton tells us that 
the Spanish language is far richer in proverbs than that 
of any other nation. But we hasten to an essay which 
will be extremely fresh and interesting to all read- 
ers. We have had many essays by Milverton : here is 
oiie by Ellesmere. He had announced some time before 
23 



354 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

his purpose of writing an essay on The Arts of Self' 
Adimncement, and Mildred, whom Ellesmere took a 
pleasure in annoying by making a parade of mean, 
selfish, and cynical views, discerned at once that in such 
an essay he would have an opportunity of bringing to- 
gether a crowd of these, and declared before Ellesmere 
began to write it that it would be a nauseous essay/ 
The essay is finished at length. The friends are now 
at Salzburg; and on a very warm day they assembled 
in a sequestered spot whence they could see the snowy 
peaks of the Tyrolese Alps. Ellesmere begins by dep- 
recating criticism of his style, declaring that anything 
inaccurate or ungrammatical is put in on purpose. Then 
he begins to read : — 

In the first place, it is desirable to be born north of the Tweed (I 
like to begin at the beginning of things); and if that cannot be man- 
aged, you must at least contrive to be born in a moderately-sized 
town — somewhere. You thus get the advantage of being favoured 
by a small community without losing any individual force. If I had 
been born in AflTpuddle — Milverton in Tolpuddle — and Dunsford in 
Tollerporcorum (there are such places, at least I saw them once ar- 
ranged together in a petition to the House of Commons), the men of 
Affpuddle, Tolpuddle, and Tollerporcorum would have been proud of 
us, would have been true to us, and would have helped to push our 
fortunes. I see, with my mind's ej^e, a statue of Dunsford raised in 
Tollerporcorum. You smile, I observe ; but it is the smile of igno- 
rance, for let me tell you, it is of the first importance not to be bcrn 
vaguely, as in London, or in some remote comitry-house. If you can- 
not, however, be born properly, contrive at least to be connected 
with some small sect or community, who may consider your renown 
as part of their renown, and be always ready to favour and defend 
you. 

After this promising introduction Ellesmere goes on to 
propound views which in an extraordinary way combine 
real good sense and sharp worldly wisdom with a parade 
of all sorts of mean shifts and contemptible tricks where- 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 355 

by to take advantage of the weakness, follj, and wicked- 
ness of human nature. Very characteristically he de- 
lights in thinking how he is shocking and disgusting poor 
Mildred : of course Dunsford and Milverton understand 
him. And the style is as characteristic as the thought. 
It is unquestionably Ellesmere to whose essay we are 
listening ; Milverton could not and would not have pro- 
duced such a discourse. We remember to have read in 
a review, published several years since, of the former 
series of Friends in Council, that it was judicious in the 
author of that work, though introducing several friends 
as talking together, to represent all the essays as written 
by one individual ; because, although he could keep up 
the individuality of the speakers through a conversation, 
it was doubtful whether he could have succeeded in doing 
so through essays purporting to be written by each of 
them. We do not know whether the author ever saw 
the challenge thus thrown down to him : but it is certain 
that in the present series he has boldly attempted the 
thing, and thoroughly succeeded. And it may be re- 
marked that not one of EUesmere's propositions can be 
regarded as mere vagaries — every one of them contain? 
truth, though truth put carefully in the most disagreeable 
and degrading way. Who does not know how great an 
element of success it is to belong to a sect or class which 
regard your reputation as identified with their own, and 
cry you up accordingly ? It is to be admitted that there 
is the preliminary difficulty of so far overcoming indi- 
vidual envies and jealousies as to get your class to accept 
you as their representative ; but once that end is accom- 
plished the thing is done. As to being born north of the 
Tweed, a Scotch Lord Chancellor and a Scotch Bishop of 
London are instructive instances. And however much 



356 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

Scotchmen may abuse one another at home, it cannot be 
denied that all Scotchmen feel it a sacred duty to stand 
up for every Scotchman who has attained to eminence 
oeyond the boundaries of his native land. Scotland, in- 
deed, in the sense in which Ellesmere uses the phrase, is 
a small community ; and a community of very energetic, 
self-denying, laborious, and determined men, with very 
many feelings in common which they have in common 
only with their countiymen, and with an invincible ten- 
dency in all times of trouble to remember the old cry of 
Highlandmen, shoulder to shoulder! Let the ambitious 
reader muse on what follows: — 

Let your position be commonplace, whatever you are yourself. If 
you are a genius, and contrive to conceal the fact, you really deserve 
to get on in the world, and you will do so, if only you keep on the 
level road. Remember always that the world is a place where second- 
rate people mostly succeed : not fools, nor first-rate people. 

Cynically put, no doubt, but admirably true. A great 
blockhead will never be made an archbishop; but in 
ordinary times a great genius stands next to him in the 
badness of his chance. After all, good sense and sound 
judgment are the essentially needful things in all but 
very exceptional situations in life — and for these commend 
us to the safe, steady-going, commonplace man. It can- 
not be denied that the great mass of mankind stand ia 
doubt and fear of people who are wonderfully clever, 
What an amount of stolid, self-complacent, ignorant, 
stupid, conceited respectability, is wrapped up in the 
declaration concerning any person, that he is " too clever 
by half!" How plainly it teaches that the general be- 
lief is that too ingenious machinery will break down in 
practical working, and that most men will do wrong who 
have the power to do it ! 



CONCERNING FRiENDS IN COUNCIL. 357 

The following propositions are true in very large com- 
munities, but they will not hold good in the country or in 
little towns : — 

Remember always that what is real and substantive ultimately has 
its way in this world. 

You make good bricks for instance : it is in vain that your enemies 
prove that you are a heretic in morals, politics, and religion ; insinuate 
that you beat your wife ; and dwell loudly on the fact that you failed 
in making picture-frames. In so far as you are a good brick-maker, 
you have all the power that depends on good brick-making ; and the 
world will mainly look to your positive qualities as a brick-maker. 

After having gone on with a number of maxims of a 
very base, selfish, and suspicious nature, to the increasing 
horror of the girls who are listening, Ellesmere passes 
from the consideration of modes of action to a much more 
important matter : — 

Those who wish for self-advancement should remember, that the art 
in life is not so much to do a thing well, as to get a thing that hatJ 
been moderately well done largely talked about. Some foolish people, 
who should have belonged to another planet, give all their minds to 
doing their work well. This is an entire mistake. This is a grievous 
loss of power. Such a method of proceeding may be very well in 
Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn, but is totally out of place in this puffing, 
advertising, bill-sticking part of creation. To rush into the battle of 
life without an abundance of kettle-drums and trumpets is a weak and 
ill-advised adventure, however well-armed and well-accoutred you 
may be. As I hate vague maxims, I will at once lay down the pro- 
portions in which force of any kind should be used in this world. 
Suppose you have a force which may be represented by the number 
one hundred : seventy-three parts at least of that force should be given 
to the trumpet; the remaining twenty-seven parts may not disadvan- 
tageously be spent in doing the thing which is to be trumpeted. This 
is a rule unlike some rules in grammar, which are entangled and con- 
trolled by a multitude of vexatious exceptions; but it applies equally 
to the conduct of all matters upon earth, whether social, moral, artistic, 
literary, political, or religious. 

Ellesmere goes on to sum up the personal qualities 
reedful to success ; and having sketched out the charac- 



358 CONCERNING FEIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

ter of a mean, crafty, sharp, energetic rascal, he cou- 
eludes by saying that such a one 

will not fail to succeed in any department of life — provided alwa3''s he 
keeps for the most part to one department, and does not attempt to 
conquer in many directions at once. I only hope that, having profited 
by this wisdom of mine, he will give me a share of the spoil. 

Thus the essay ends ; and then the discourse thereon 
begins — 

MiLVERTON. "Well, of all the intolerable wretches and black- 
guards 

Mr. Midtiurst. A conceited prig, too ! 

DuNSFORD. A wicked, designing villain ! 

Ellesmere. Any more: any more? Pray go on, gentlemen; and 
have you, ladies, nothing to say against the wise man of the world 
that I have depicted ? 

And yet the upshot of the conversation was, that 
though given in a highly disagreeable and obtrusively 
base form, there was much truth in what Ellesmere had 
said. It is to be remembered that he did not pretend to 
describe a good man, but only a successful one. And it 
is to be remembered likewise that prudence verges tow- 
ard baseness ; and that the difference between the sug- 
gestions of each lies very much in the fashion in which 
these suggestions are put and enforced. As to the use 
of the trumpet, how many advertising tailors and pill- 
makers could testify to the soundness of Ellesmere*8 
principle ? And beyond the Atlantic it finds special 
favor. When Barnum exhibited his mermaid, and stuck 
up outside his show-room a picture of three beautiful 
mermaids, of human size, with flowing hair, basking upon 
a summer sea, while inside the show-room he had the 
hideous little contorted figure made of a monkey with a 
fish's tail attached to it, probably the proportion of the 
trumpet to the thing trumpeted was even greater than 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 359 

Beventj-three to twenty-seven. Dunsford suggests, for 
the comfort of those who will not stoop to unworthy 
means for obtaining success, the beautiful saying, that 
" Heaven is probably a place for those who have failed 
on earth." And EUesmere, adhering to his expressed 
views, declares — 

If you had attended to them earlier in life, Dunsford would no-w be 
Mr. Dean; Milverton would be the Right Honorable Leonard Milver- 
ton, and the leader of a party ; Mr. Midhurst would be chief cook to 
the Emperor Napoleon ; the bull-dog would have been promoted to the 
parlor; I, but no man is wise for himself, should have been Lord Chan- 
cellor; Walter would be at the head of his class without having any 
more knowledge than he has at present; and as for you tAvo girls, one 
would be a Maid of Honor to the Queen, and the other would have 
married the richest man in the county. 

We have not space to tell how EUesmere planned to 
get Mr. Midhurst to write an essay on the Miseries of 
Human Life ; nor how at Treves, upon a lowering day, 
the party, seated in the ancient amphitheatre, heard it 
read ; nor how fully, eloquently, and not unfairly, the 
gloomy man, not without a certain solemn enjoyment, 
summed up his sad catalogue of the ills that flesh is heir 
to ; nor how Milverton agreed in the evening to speak an 
answer to the essay, and show that life was not so mis- 
erable after all ; nor how EUesmere, eager to have it 
answered effectively, determined that Milverton should 
have the little accessories in his favor, the red curtains 
drawn, a blazing wood-fire, and plenty of light ; nor how 
before the answer began, he brought Milverton a glass 
of wine to cheer him ; nor how Milverton endeavored to 
show that in the present system misery was not quite pre- 
dominant, and that much good in many ways came out of 
111. Then we have some talk about Pleasantness; and 
Dunsford is persuaded to write and read an essay on that 



360 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

subject, which he read one raornhig, ' while we were sit- 
ting in the balcony of an hotel, in one of the small towna 
that overlook the Moselle, which was flowing beneath in 
a reddish turbid stream.' In the conversation which fol- 
lows Milverton says, 

It is a fault certainly to wliich writers are liable, that of exaggerating 
the claims of their subject. 

And how truly is that said ! Indeed we can quite im- 
agine a very earnest man feeling afraid to think too much 
and long about any existing evil, for fear it should greaten 
on his view into a thing so large and pernicious, that he 
should be constrained to give all his life to the wrestling 
with that one thing ; and attach to it an importance which 
would make his neighbors think him a monomaniac. If 
you think long and deeply upon any subject, it grows in 
magnitude and weight : if you think of it too long, it 
may grow big enough to exclude the thought of all things 
beside. If it be an existing and prevalent evil you are 
thinking of, you may come to fancy that if that one thinj| 
could be done away, it would be well with the human 
race, — all evil would go with it. We can sympathize 
deeply with that man who died a short while since, who 
wrote volume after volume to prove that if men would 
only leave off stooping, and learn to hold themselves up* 
right, it would be the grandest blessing that ever came to 
humanity. We can quite conceive the process by which 
a man might come to think so, without admitting mania 
as a cause. We confess, for ourselves, that so deeply do 
we feel the force of the law Milverton mentions, there are 
certain evils of which we are afraid to think much, for 
fear we should come to be able to think of nothing else, 
and of nothing more. 

Then a pleasant chapter, entitled Lovers^ Quarrels, tella 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 361 

US how matters are progressing with the two pairs. Mil- 
verton and Blanche are going on most satisfactorily ; but 
Ellesmere and Mildred are wayward and hard to keep 
right. Ellesmere sadly disappointed Mildred by the sor- 
did views he advanced in his essay, and kept advancing 
in his talk ; and like a proud and shy man of middle age 
when in love, he was ever watchinf' for distant sli";ht in- 
dications of how his suit might be received, and rendered 
fractious by the uncertainty of Mildred's conduct and 
bearing. And probably women have little notion by 
what slight and hardly thought-of sayings and doings 
they may have repressed the declaration and the offer 
which might perhaps have made them happy. Day by 
day Dunsford was vexed by the growing estrangement 
between two persons who were really much attached ; 
and this unhappy state of matters might have ended in 
a final separation but for the happy incident recorded 
in the chapter called Rowing down the River Moselle. 
The party had rowed down the river, talking as usual 
of many things : — 

It was just at this point of the conversation that we pulled in nearer 
to the land, as Walter had made signs that he wished now to get into 
the boat. It was a weedy rushy part of the river that we entered. 
Fixer saw a rat or some other creature, which he was wild to get at. 
Ellesmere excited him to do so, and the dog sprang out of the boat. 
In a minute or two Fixer became entangled in the weeds, and seemed 
to be in danger of sinking. Ellesmere, without thinking what he was 
about, made a hasty effort to save the dog, seized hold of him, but lost 
his own balance and fell out of the boat. In another moment Mildred 
gave me the end of her shawl to hold, which she had wound round 
herself, and sprang out too. The sensible diplomatist lost no time in 
throwing his weighty person to the other side of the boat. The two 
boatmen did the same. But for this move, the boat would, in all prob- 
ability, have capsized, and we should all have been lost. Mildred was 
successful in clutching hold of Ellesmere ; and Milverton and I man- 
aged to haul them close to the boat and to pull them in. Ellesmere 
had not relinquished hold of Fixer. All this happened, as such acci- 



362 CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

dents do, in ahiost less time than it takes to describe them. And noyt 
came another dripping creature splashing into the boat; lor Master 
Walter, who can swim like a duck, had plunged in directly he saw the 
accident, but too late to be of any assistance. 

Things are now all right ; and Ellesmere next day an- 
nounces to his friends that Mildred and he are engaged. 
Two chapters, on Government and Despotism respectively, 
give us the last thoughts of the Friends abroad ; then we 
have a pleasant picture of them all in Milverton's farm- 
yard, under a great sycamore, discoursing cheerfully of 
country cares. The closing chapter of the book is on 
Tlie Need for Tolerance. It contains a host of thoughts 
which we should be glad to extract ; but we must be con- 
tent with a wise saying of Milverton's : — 

For a man who has been rigidly good to be supremely tolerant, 
would require an amount of insight which seems to belong only to the 
greatest genius. 

For we hardly sympathize with that which we have not 
in some measure experienced ; and the great thing, after 
all, which makes us tolerant of the errors of other men, is 
the feeling that under like circumstances we should have 
ourselves erred in like manner ; or, at all events, the be- 
ing able to see the error in such a light as to feel that 
there is that within ourselves which enables us at least to 
understand how men should in such a way have erred. 
The sins on which we are most severe are those concern- 
ing which our feeling is, that we cannot conceive how any 
man could possibly have done them. And probably such 
would be the feeling of a rigidly good man concerning 
every sin. 

So we part, for the present, from our Friends, not with- 
out the hope of again meeting them. We have been lis- 



CONCERNING FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 363 

tening to the conversation of living men ; and, in parting, 
we feel the regret that we should feel in quitting a kind 
friend's house after a pleasant visit, not, perhaps, to be 
renewed for many a day. And this is a changing world. 
"We have been breathing the old atmosphere, and listen- 
ing to the old voices talking in the old way. We have 
had new thought and new truth, but presented in tho 
fashion we have known and enjoyed for years. Happily 
we can repeat our visit as often as we please, without 
the fear of worrying or wearying ; for we may open the 
book at will. And we shall hope for new visits likewise. 
Milverton will be as earnest and more hopeful, Ellesmere 
will retain all that is good, and that which is provoking 
will now be softened down. No doubt by this time they 
are married. Where have they gone ? The continent is 
unsettled, and they have often already been there. Per- 
haps they have gone to Scotland ? No doubt they have. 
And perhaps before the leaves are sere ws may find them 
out among the sea lochs of the beautiful Frith of Clyde, 
or under the shadow of Ben Nevis. 



CHAPTER XII. 
CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 




pit orator. 



EARLY forty years since, Dr. Chalmers, 
one of the parish ministers of Glasgow, 
preached several times in London. He waa 
then in the zenith of his popularity as a pul- 
Canning and "VVilberforce went together to 
hear him upon one occasion ; and after sitting spell-bound 
under his eloquence, Canning said to Wilberforce when 
the sermon was done, ' The tartan beats us ; we have no 
preaching like that in England.' 

In October 1855, the Rev. John Caird, incumbent of 
the parish of Errol, in Perthshire, preached before the 
Queen and Court at the church of Crathie. Her Majesty 
was so impressed by the discourse that she commanded 
its publication ; and the Prince Consort, no mean author- 
ity, expressed his admiration of the ability of the preach- 
er, saying that ' he had not heard a preacher like him for 
seven years, and did not expect to enjoy a like pleasure 
for as long a period to come.' So, at all events, says a 
paragraph in Tlie Times of December 12th, 1855. 

It is somewhat startling to find men of cultivated taste, 
who are familiar with the highest class preaching of the 
English Church, expressing their sense of the superior 



CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. dC5 

effect of pulj)it oratory of a very different kind. No 
doubt Caird and Chalmers are the best of their class ; 
and the overwhelming effect which they and a few other 
Scotch preachers have often produced, is in a great degree 
owing to the individual genius of the men, and not to the 
school of preaching they belong to. Yet both are repre- 
sent j.tives of what may be called the Scotch school of 
pretiching : and with all their genius, they never could 
ha\e carried away their audience as they have done, had 
they been trammelled by those canons of taste to which 
English preachers almost invariably conform. Their 
manner is just the regular Scotch manner, vivified into 
tenfold effect by their own peculiar genius. Preaching in 
Scotland is a totally different thing from what it is in 
England. In the former country it is generally charac- 
terized by an amount of excitement in delivery and mat- 
ter, which in England is only found among the most fanat- 
ical Dissenters, and is practically unknown in the pulpits 
of the national church. No doubt English and Scotch 
preaching differ in substance to a certain extent. Scotch 
sermons are generally longer, averaging from forty min- 
utes to an hour in the delivery. There is a more prom- 
inent and constant pressing of what is called evangelical 
doctrine. The treatment of the subject is more formal. 
There is an introduction ; two or three heads of discourse^ 
formally announced ; and a practical conclusion ; and 
generally the entire Calvinistic system is set forth in 
every sermon. But the main difference lies in the man- 
ner in which the discourses of the two schools are deliv- 
ered. Wliile English sermons are generally read with 
quiet dignity, in Scotland they are very commonly re- 
peated from memory, and given with great vehemence 
and oratorical effect, and abundant gesticulation. Nor is 



36G CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

it to be supposed that when we say the difference is main 
\y in manner, we think it a small one. There is only one 
account given by all wdio have heard the most striking 
Scotch preachers, as to the proportion which their manner 
bears in the effect produced. Lockhart, late of The Quar- 
terly, says of Chalmers, ' Never did the world possess any 
oralor whose minutest peculiarities of gesture and voice. 
have more power in increasing the effect of what he says, 
whose delivery, in other words, is the first, and the second, 
and the third excellence in his oratory, more truly than is 
that of Dr. Chalmers.' The same words might be repeated 
of Caird, who has succeeded to Chalmers's fame. A hun- 
dred little circumstances of voice and manner — even of 
appearance and dress — combine to give his oratory its 
overwhelming power. And where manner is everything, 
difference in manner is a total difference. Nor does man- 
ner affect only the less educated and intelligent class of 
hearers. It cannot be doubted that the unparalleled im- 
pression produced, even on such men as Wilberforce, Can- 
ning, Lockhart, Lord Jeffrey, and Prince Albert, was 
mainly the result of manner. In point of substance and 
style, many English preachers are quite superior to the 
best of the Scotch. In these respects, there are no preach- 
ers in Scotland who come near the mark of Melvill, Man- 
ning, Arnold, or Bishop Wilberforce. Lockhart says of 
Chalmers, 

I have heard many men deliver sermons far better arranged in point 
of argument; and I have heard very many deliver sermons far more 
uniform in elegance, both of conception and of style ; but most un- 
questionably, I have never heard, either in England or Scotland, or ia 
any other country, a preacher whose eloquence is capable of pioducing 
*M effect so strong and irresistible as his.* 

* /'"<er'« Letters *o his Kinsfolk, vol. iii. p. 267. 



CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. o67 

The best proof how much Chalmers owed to his man- 
ner, is, that in his latter days, when he was no longer able 
to give them with his wonted animation and feeling, the 
very same discourses fell quite flat on his congregation. 

It is long since Sydney Smith expressed his views as 
to the chilliness which is the general characteristic of the 
Anglican pulpit. In the preface to his published sermons, 
he says : 

The English, generally remarkable for doing very good things in a 
very bad manner, seem to have reserved the maturity and plenitude 
of their awkwardness for the pulpit. A clergyman clings to his velvet 
cushion with either hand, keeps his eye rivetted on his book, speaks of 
the ecstacies of joy and fear with a voice and a face which indicates 
neither; and pinions his body and soul into the same attitude of limb 
and thought, for fear of being thought theatrical and affected. The 
most intrepid veteran of us all dares no more than wipe his face with 
his cambric sudarium ; if by mischance his hand slip from its orthodox 
gripe of the velvet, he draws it back as from liquid brimstone, and 
atones for the indecorum by fresh inflexibility and more rigorous same- 
ness. Is it wonder, then, that every semi-delirious sectary who pours 
forth his animated nonsense with the genuine look and voice of pas- 
sion, should gesticulate away the congregation of the most profound 
and learned divine of the established church, and in two Sundays 
preach him bare to the very sexton ? Why are we natural everywhere 
but in the pulpit ? No man expresses warm and animated feelings 
anywhere else, with his mouth only, but with his whole body ; he artic- 
ulates with every limb, and talks from head to foot with a thousand 
voices. Why this holoplexia on sacred occasions only? Why call in 
the aid of paralysis to piety? Is sin to be taken from men, as Eve was 
from Adam, by casting them into a deep slumber? Or from what pos- 
sible perversion of common sense are we all to look li^ field preachers 
in Zembla, holy lumps of ice, numbed into quiescence and stagnation 
and mumbling ? 

Now in Scotland, for very many years past, the stand- 
ard style of preaching has been that which the lively 
yet gentle satirist wished to see more common in Eng- 
land. Whether successfully or not, Scotch preachers aim 
at what Sydney Smith regarded as the right way of 



3G8 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

preaching — 'to rouse, to appeal, to inflame, to break 
through every bariier, up to the very haunts and cham- 
bers of the soul.' Whether this end be a safe one to pro- 
pose to each one of some hundreds of men of ordinary 
ability and taste, may be a question. An unsuccessful 
attempt at it is very likely to land a man in gross offence 
against common taste and common sense, from which he 
whose aim is less ambitious is almost certainly safe. The 
preacher whose purpose is to preach plain sense in such 
a style and manner as not to offend people of education 
and refinement, if he fail in doing what he wishes, may 
indeed be dull, but will not be absurd and offensive. But 
however this may be, it is curious that this impassioned 
and highly oratorical school of preaching should be found 
among a cautious, cool-headed race like the Scotch. The 
Scotch are proverbial for long lieads, and no great capac- 
ity of emotion. Sir Walter Scott, in Roh Roy, in de- 
scribing the preacher whom the hero heard in the crypt 
of Glasgow Cathedral, says that his countrymen are much 
more accessible to logic than rhetoric ; and that this fact 
determines the character of the preaching which is most 
acceptable to them. If the case was such in those times, 
matters are assuredly quite altered now. Logic is indeed 
not overlooked : but it is brilliancy of illustration, and, 
above all, great feeling and earnestness, which go down. 
Mr. Caird, tte most popular of modern Scotch preachers, 
though possessing a very powerful and logical mind, yet 
owes his popularity with the mass of hearers almost en- 
tirely to his tremendous power of feeling and producing 
emotion. By way of contrast to Sydney Smith's ])icture 
of the English pulpit manner, let us look at one of Chal- 
mers's great appearances. Look on that picture, and then 
on this : 



COxNTCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. SCO 

The Doctor's manner during the whole delivery of that magnificent 
discourse was strikingly animated: while the enthusiasm and energy 
he threw into some of his bursts rendered them quite overpowering. 
One expression which he used, together with his action, his look, and 
the tones of his voice, made a most vivid and indelible impression on 
my memorj''. . . . While uttering these words, which he did with 
peculiar emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye ami a 
stamp ofhisfoot^ he threw his right arm with clenched flst Hght across 
the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town Council, 
silling in state before him. The words seem to startle, like an electric 
shock, the whole audience. 

Very likely they did : but we should regret to see a 
bishop, or even a dean, have recourse to such means of 
producing an impression. We shall give one other ex- 
tract descriptive of Chalmers's manner : 

It was a transcendently grand, a glorious burst. The energy of his 
action corresponded. Intense emotion beamed from his countenance. 
I cannot describe the appearance of his face better than by saying it 
was lighted up almost into a glare. The congregation were intensely 
excited, leaning forward in the pews like a forest bending imder the 
power of the hurricane, — looking steadfastlv at the preacher, and lis- 
tening in breathless wonderment. So soon as it was concluded, there 
was (as invariably was the case at the close of the Doctor's bursts) a 
deep sigh, or rather gasp for breath, accompanied by a movement 
throughout the whole audience.* 

There is indeed in the Scotch Church a considerable 
class of most respectable preachers who read their ser- 
mons, and who, both for matter and manner, might be 
transplanted without remark into the pulpit of any ca- 
thedral in England. There is a school, also, of high 
ntanding and no small popularity, whose manner and 
style are calm and beautiful; but who, through deficiency 
of that vehemence which is at such a premium in Scot- 
land at present, will never draw crowds such as hang 

* Life of Chalmers, vol. i. pp. 462, 3, and 467, 8. It should be 
mentioned that Chalmers, notwithstanding this tremendous vehe 
mence, always read his sermons. 

24 



370 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

upon the lips of more excited orators. Foremost among 
8uch stands Mr. Robertson, minister of Strathmartin, in 
Forfarshire. Dr. McCulloch, of Greenock, and Dr. 
Veitch, of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, are among the 
best specimens of the class. But that preaching which 
interests, leads onward, and instructs, has few admirers 
compared with that which thrills, overwhelms, and sweeps 
away. And from the impression made on individuals so 
competent to judge as those already mentioned, it would 
certainly seem that, whether suited to the dignity of the 
pulpit or not, the deepest oratorical effect is made by the 
latter, even on cultivated minds. Some of the most pop- 
ular preachers in England have formed themselves on 
the Scotch model. Melvill and M'Neile are examples : 
so, in a different walk, is Ryle, so w-ell known by his 
tracts. We believe that Melvill in his early days deliv- 
ered his sermons from memory, and of late years only 
has taken to readins:, to the considerable diminution of 
the effect he produces. We may here remark, that in 
some country districts the prejudice of the people against 
clergymen reading their sermons is excessive. It is in- 
deed to be admitted that it is a more natural thing that 
a speaker should look at the audience he is addressing, 
and appear to speak from the feeling of the moment, than 
that he should read to them what he has to say ; but it is 
hard to impose upon a parish minister, burdened with 
pastoral duty, the irksome school-boy task of committing 
to memory a long sermon, and perhaps two, every week. 
The system of reading is spreading rapidly in the Scotch 
Church, and seems li^ ely in a few years to become all 
but universal. Caird reads his sermons closely on ordi- 
nary Sundays, but delivers entirely from memory in 
preaching on any particular occasion. 



CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. S71 

It may easily be imagined that when every one of 
fourteen or fifteen hundred preachers understands on en- 
tering the church that his manner must be animated if he 
looks for preferment, very many will have a very bad 
manner. It is wonderful, indeed, when we look to the 
average run of respectable Scotch preachers, to find how 
many take kindly to the emotional style. Often, of 
course, such a style is thoroughly contrary to the man's 
idiosyncracy. Still, he must seem warm and animated ; 
and the consequence is frequently loud speaking without 
a vestige of feeling, and much roaring when there is 
nothing whatever in what is said to demand it. Noise 
is mistaken for animation. We have been startled on 
going into a little country kirk, in which any speaking 
above a whisper would have been audible, to find the 
minister from the very beginning of the service, roaring 
as if speaking to people a quarter of a mile. off. Yet the 
rustics were still, and appeared attentive. They re- 
garded their clergyman as ' a powerfu' preacher ; ' while 
the most nervous thought, uttered in more civilized tones, 
would have been esteemed ' unco weak.' We are speak- 
ing, of course, of very plain congregations ; but among 
such ' a powerful preacher ' means a preacher with a 
powerful voice and great physical energy. 

Let not English readers imagine, when we speak 
of the vehemence of the Scotch pulpit, that we mean 
only a gentlemanly degree of warmth and energy. It 
often amounts to the most violent melo-dramatic acting. 
Shell's Irish speeches would have been immensely pop- 
ular Scotch sermons, so far as their style and delivery 
are concerned. The physical energy is tremendous. It 
is said that when Chalmers preached in St. George's, 
Edinburgh, the massive chandeliers, many feet off, were 



872 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

all vibrating. He had often to stop, exhausted, in the 
midst of his sermon, and have a psalm sung till he re- 
covered breath. Caird begins quietly, but frequently 
works himself up to a frantic excitement, in which his 
gestulation is of the wildest, and his voice an absolute 
howl. One feels afraid that he may burst a bloodvessel- 
Were his hearers cool enough to criticise him, the im- 
pression would be at an end ; but he has wound them up 
to such a pitch that criticism is impossible. They must 
sit absolutely passive, with nerves tingling and blood 
pausing : frequently many of the congregation have 
started to their feet. It may be imagined how heavily 
the physical energies of the preacher are drawn upon 
by this mode of speaking. Dr. Bennie, one of the min- 
isters of Edinburgh, and one of the most eloquent and 
effective of Scotch pulpit orators, is said to have died at 
an age much short of fifty, worn out by the enthusiastic 
animation of his style. There are some little accessories 
of the Scotch pulpit, which in England are unknown : 
such as thrashing the large Bible which lies before the 
minister — long pauses to recover breath — much wip- 
ing of the face — sodorific results to an unpleasant de- 
gree, necessitating an entire change of apparel after 
preaching. 

The secret of the superior power over a mixed con- 
gregation of the best Scotch, as compared with most 
English preachers, is that the former are not deterred by 
any considerations of the dignity of the pulpit, from any 
oratorical art which is likely to produce an effect. Some 
times indeed, where better things might be expected, the 
most reprehensible clap-trap is resorted to. An English 
preacher is fettered and trammelled by fear of being 
thought fanatical and methodistical, — and still worse, 



CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 373 

ungeiitlemaiilike. He knows, too, that a reputation as 
a 'popular preacher' is not the thing which will con- 
duce much to his preferment in his profession. The 
Scotch preacher, on the other hand, throws himself heart 
and soul into his subject. Chalmers overcame the notion 
that vehemence in the pulpit was. indicative of either 
fanaticism or weakness of intellect : he made ultra-anima- 
tion respectable : and earnestness, even in an excessive 
degree, is all in favour of a young preacher's popularity ; 
while a man's chance of the most valuable preferments 
(in the way of parochial livings) of the Scotch church, 
is in exact proportion to his popularity as a preacher. 
The spell of the greatest preachers is in their capacity of 
intense feeling. This is reflected on the congregation. 
A congregation will in most cases feel but a very inferior 
degree of the emotion which the preacher feels. But in- 
tense feeling is contagious. There is much in common 
between the tragic actor and the popular preacher ; but 
while the actor's power is generally the result of a stud- 
ied elocution, the preacher's is almost always native. A 
teacher of elocution would probably say that the manner 
of Chalmers, Guthrie, or Caird was a very bad one ; but 
it suits the man, and no other would produce a like im- 
pression. In reading the most effective discourses of the 
greatest preachers, we are invariably disappointed. We 
can see nothing very particular in those quotations from 
Chalmers which are recorded as having so overwhelm- 
ingly impressed those who heard them. It was manner 
that did it all. In short, an accessory which in England 
is almost entirely neglected, is the secret of Scotch effect. 
Nor is it any derogation from an orator's genius to say 
that his power lies much less in what he says than in 
bow he says it. It is but saying that his weapon can be 



374 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

wielded by no other hand than his own. Manner makes 
the entire difference between Macready and the poorest 
stroller that murders Shakspeare. The matter is the 
Bame in the case of each. Each has the same thing to 
say ; the enormous difference lies in the manner in which 
each says it. The greatest effects recorded to have been 
produced by human language, have been produced by 
things which, in merely reading them, would not have 
appeared so very remarkable. Hazlitt tells us that noth- 
ing so lingered on his ear as a line from Home's Doug- 
las^ as spoken by young Betty : — 

And happy, in my mind, was he that died. 

We have heard it said that Macready never produced a 
greater effect than by the very simple words ' Who said 
that ? ' It is perhaps a burlesque of an acknowledged 
fact, to record that Whitfield could thrill an audience by 
saying ' Mesopotamia ! ' Hugh Miller tells us that he 
heard Chalmers read a piece which he (Miller) had him- 
self written. It produced the effect of the most telling 
acting ; and its author never knew how fine it was till 
then. We remember well the feeling which ran through 
us when we heard Caird say, * As we bend over the 
grave, where the dying are burying the dead.' All this 
is the result of that gift of genius ; to feel with the whole 
soul and utter with the whole soul. The case of Gavaz zi 
shows that tremendous energy can carry an audience 
away, without its understanding a syllable of what is 
said. Inferior men think by loud roaring and frantic 
gesticulation to produce that impression which genius 
alone can produce. But the counterfeit is wretched ; 
and with all intelligent people the result is derision and 
disgust. 



CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. S75 

Many of our readers, we daresay, have never wit- 
nessed the service of the Scotch Church. Its order is 
the simplest possible. A psalm is sung, the congrega- 
tion sitting. A prayer of about a quarter of an hour in 
length is offered, the congregation standing. A chapter 
of the Bible is read ; another psalm sung ; then comes 
the sermon. A short prayer and a psalm follow ; and 
the service is terminated by the benediction. The entire 
service lasts about an hour and a half. It is almost in- 
variably conducted by a single clergyman. In towns, 
the churches now approximate pretty much to the Eng- 
lish, as regards architecture. It is only in country 
places that one finds the true bareness of Presbytery. 
The main difference is that there is no altar ; the com- 
munion table being placed in the body of the church. 
The pulpit occupies the altar end, and forms the most 
prominent object ; symbolizing very accurately the rela- 
tive estimation of the sermon in the Scotch service. 
"Whenever a new church is built, the recurrence to a true 
ecclesiastical style is marked ; and vaulted roofs, stained 
glass, and dark oak, have, in large towns, in a great de- 
gree, supplanted the flat-roofed meetinghouses which 
were the Presbyterian ideal. The preacher generally 
wears the English preaching gown. The old Geneva 
gown covered with frogs is hardly ever seen ; but the 
surplice would still stir up a revolution. The service is 
performed with much propriety of demeanour ; the sing- 
ing is often so well done by a good choir, that the absence 
of the organ is hardly felt. Educated Scotchmen have 
come to lament the intolerant zeal which led the first Re- 
formers in their country to such extremes. But in the 
country we still see the true genius of the Presbytery, 
The rustics walk into church with their hats on ; and re 



376 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

place them and hurry out the instant the service is over. 
The decorous prayer before and after worship is un- 
known. The minister, in many churches wears no 
gown. The stupid bigotry of the people in some of the 
most covenanting districts is almost incredible. There 
are parishes in which the people boast that they have 
never suffered so Romish a thing as a gown to appear in 
their pulpit ; and the country people of Scotland gener- 
ally regard Episcopacy as not a whit better than Popery. 
It has sometimes struck us as curious, that the Scotch 
have always made such endeavours to have a voice in 
the selection of their clergy. Almost all the dissenters 
from the Church of Scotland hold precisely the same 
views both of doctrine and church government as the 
Church, and have seceded on points connected with the 
existence of lay patronage. In England much discon- 
tent may sometimes be excited by an arbitrary appoint- 
ment to a living ; but it would be vain to endeavour to 
excite a movement throughout the whole country to pre- 
vent the recurrence of such appointments. Yet upon 
precisely this point did some three or four hundred min- 
isters secede from the Scotch Church in 1843 ; and to 
maintain the abstract right of congregations to a share 
in the appointment of their minister, has the ' Free 
Church ' drawn from the humbler classes of a poor coun- 
try many hundred thousand pounds. No doubt all this 
results in some measure from the self-sufficiency of the 
Scotch character ; but besides this, it should be remem- 
bered that to a Scotchman it is a matter of much graver 
importance who shall be his clergyman than it is to an 
Englishman. In England, if the clergyman can but 
read decently, the congregation may find edification in 
listening to and joining in the beautiful prayers pro- 



CONCERNIXG THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 377 

vided by the Church, even though the sermon should be 
poor enough. But in Scotland everything depends on 
the minister. If he be a fool, he can make the entire 
service as foolish as himself. For prayers, sermon, 
choice of passages of Scripture which are read, every- 
thing, the congregation is dependent on the preacher. 
The question, whether the worship to which the people 
of a parish are invited weekly shall be interesting and 
improving, or shall be absurd and revolting, is decided 
by the piety, good sense, and ability of the parish priest. 
Coleridge said he never knew the value of the Liturgy 
till he had heard the prayers which were offered in some 
remote country churches in Scotland. 

We have not space to inquire into the circumstances 
which have given Scotch preaching its peculiar character. 
We may remark, however, that the sermon is the great 
feature of the Scotch service ; it is the only attraction ; 
and pains must be taken with it. The prayers are held 
in very secondary estimation. The preacher who aims 
at interesting his congregation, racks his brain to find 
what will startle and strike ; and then the warmth of his 
delivery adds to his chance of keeping up attention. 
Then the Scotch are not a theatre-going people ; they 
have not, thus, those stage-associations with a dramatic 
manner which would suggest themselves to many minds. 
Many likewise expect that excitement in the church, 
which is more suited to the atmosphere of the play-house. 
Patrons of late years not unfrequently allow a congrega- 
tion to choose its own minister ; the Crown almost invari- 
flibly consults the people ; the decided taste of almost all 
congregations is for great warmth of manner ; and the 
supply is made to suit the demand. 

As for the solemn question, how far Scotch preaching 



378 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

answers the great end of all right preaching, it is hard 
to speak. No doubt it is a great thing to arouse the 
somewhat comatose attention of any audience to a dis- 
course upon religion, and any means short of clap-trap 
and indecorum are justified if they succeed in doing so. 
No man will be informed or improved by a sermon 
which sets him asleep. Yet it is to be feared that, in 
the prevailing rage for what is striking and new, some 
eminent preachers sacrifice usefulness to glitter. We 
have heard discourses concerning which, had we been 
asked when they were over. What is the tendency and 
result of all this ? — what is the conclusion it all leads 
to ? — we should have been obliged to reply. Only that 
Mr. Such-a-one is an uncommonly clever man. The 
intellectual treat, likewise, of listening to first-class pul- 
pit oratory, tends to draw many to church merely to 
enjoy it. Many go, not to be the better for the truth 
set forth, but to be delighted by the preacher's eloquence. 
And it is certain that many persons whose daily life 
exhibits no trace of religion, have been most regular 
and attentive hearers of the most striking preachers. 
We may mention an instance in point. When Mr. 
Caird was one of the ministers of Edinburgh, he 
preached in a church, one gallery of wdiich is allotted 
to students of the University. A friend of ours was one 
Sunday afternoon in that gallery, when he observed in 
the pew before him two very rough-looking fellows, with 
huge walking-sticks projecting from their great-coat 
pockets, and all the unmistakable marks of medical stu- 
dents. It was evident they were little accustomed to 
attend any place of worship. The church, as usual, was 
crammed to suffocation, and Mr. Caird preached a most 
stirring sermon. As he wound up one paragraph to an 



CONCERMXG THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 379 

overwhelming climax, the whole congregation bent for- 
ward in eager and breathless silence. The medical stu- 
dents were under the general spell. Half rising from 
their seats they gazed at the preacher with open mouths. 
At length the burst was over, and a long sigh relieved 
the wrought-up multitude. The two students sank upon 
their seat, and looked at one another fixedly : and the 
first expressed his appreciation of the eloquence of what 
he had heard by exclaiming half aloud to his companion, 
* Damn it, thafs it J 

The doctrine preached in Scotch pulpits is now almost 
invariably what is termed evangelical. For a long time, 
now long gone by, many of the clergy preached morality, 
with very inadequate views of Christian doctrine. We 
cannot but notice a misrepresentation of Dr. Hanna, in 
his Life of Chalmers, Without saying so, he leaves an 
impression that all the clergy of the Moderate or Con- 
servative party in the Church held those semi-infidel 
views which Chalmers entertained in his early days. 
The case is by no means so. Very many ministers, not 
belonging to the movement party, held truly orthodox 
opinions, and did their pastoral work as faithfully as ever 
Chalmers did after his great change of sentiment. It is 
curious to know that while party feeling ran high in the 
Scotch Church, it was a shibboleth of the Moderate par- 
ty to use the Lord's Prayer in the Church service. The 
other party rejected that beautiful compendium of all 
eupplication, on the ground that it was not a Christian 
prayer, no mention being made in it of the doctrine of 
the atonement. It is recorded that on one occasion a 
minister of what was termed the ' High-flying ' party 
was to preach for Dr. Gilchrist, of the Canongate Church 
>tf Edinburgh, That venerable clergyman told his friend 



SSO CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

before service that it was usual in the Canongate Churc>-: 
to make use of the Lord'y Prayer at every celebration ol 
worship. The friend looked somewhat disconcerted, and 
said, 'Is it absolutely necessary that I should give the 
Lord's Prayer ? ' ' Not at all/ was Dr. Gilchrist's reply, 
* not at all, if you can give us anything better I ' 

Mr. Caird's sermon preached at Crathie has been 
published by royal command. It is no secret that the 
Queen and Prince, after hearing it, read it in manu- 
script, and expressed themselves no less impressed in read- 
ing it by the soundness of its views, than they had been in 
listening to it by its extraordinary eloquence. Our pe- 
rusal of it has strongly confirmed us in the views we 
have expressed as to the share which Mr. Caird's man- 
ner has in producing the effect with which his discourses 
tell upon any audience. The sermon is indeed an admi- 
rable one ; accurate, and sometimes original in thought : 
illustrated with rare profusion of imagery, all in ex- 
quisite taste, and expressed in words scarcely one of 
which could be altered or displaced but for the worse. 
But Mr. Caird could not publish his voice and manner, 
and in wanting these, the sermon wants the first, second, 
and third things which conduced to its effect when de- 
livered. In May, 1854, Mr. Caird preached this dis- 
course in the High Church, Edinburgh, before the Com- 
missioner who represents her Majesty at the meetings of 
the General Assembly of the Scotch Church, and an 
exceedingly crowded and brilliant audience. Given 
there, with all the skill of the most accomplished actor, 
yet with a simple earnestness which prevented the least 
suspicion of anything like acting, the impression it pro- 
duced is described as something marvellous. Hard- 
headed Scotch lawyers, the last men in the world to be 



CONCERXIXG THE PULPIT IX SCOTLAND. 381 

carried into superlatives, declared that never till then 
did they understand what effect could be produced by- 
human speech. But we confess that now we have these 
magic words to read quietly at home, we find it some- 
thing of a task to get through them. A volume just 
published by Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh, the greatest 
pulpit orator of the ' Free Church,' contains many ser- 
mons much more likely to interest a reader. 

The sermon is from the text, * Not slothful in busi- 
ness ; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.' * It sets out 
thus : — 

To combine business with religion, to keep up a spirit of serious 
piety amid the stir and distraction of a busy and active life, — this is 
one of the most difficult parts of a Christian's trial in this world. It 
is comparatively easy to be religious in the church — to collect our 
thoughts and compose our feelings, and enter, with an appearance of 
propriety and decorum, into the offices of religious worship, amidst 
the quietude of the Sabbath, and within the still and sacred precinctj 
of the house of prayer. But to be religious in the world — to be pious 
and holy and earnest-minded in the counting-room, the manufactory, 
the market-place, the field, the farm — to carry our good and solemn 
thoughts and feelings into the throng and thoroughfare of daily life, — 
this is the great difficulty of our Christian calling. No man not lost 
to all moral influence can help feeling his worldly passions calmed, 
and some measure of seriousness stealing over his mind, when engaged 
in the performance of the more awful and serious rites of religion; 
but the atmosphere of the domestic circle, the exchange, the street, 
the city's throng, amidst coarse work and cankering cares and toils, js 
a very different atmosphere from that of a communion-table. PassiMg 
from one to the other has often seemed as the sudden transition from a 
tropical to a polar climate — from balmy warmth and sunshine to 
murky mist and freezing cold. And it appears sometimes as difficult 
to maintain the strength and steadfastness of religious principle and 
feeling when we go forth fi-om the church to the world, as it would be 
to preserve an exotic alive in the open air in winter, or to keep the 

amp that burns steadily within doors from being blown out if you tak« 

»t abroad unsheltered from the wind. 

» 

* Romans xii 11. 



882 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

The preacher then speaks of the shifts by which men 
have evaded the task of being holy, at once in the church 
and in the world ; in ancient times by flying from the 
world altogether, in modern times by making religion 
altogether a Sunday thing. In opposition to either no- 
tion the text suggests, — 

That piety is not for Sundays only, but for all days; that spirituality 
of mind is not appropriate to one set of actions, and an impertinence 
end intrusion with reference to others ; but like the act of breathing, 
like the circulation of the blood, like the silent growth of the stature, 
a process that may be going on simultaneously with all our actions — 
when we are busiest as when we are idlest ; in the church, in the world ; 
in solitude, in society ; in our grief and in our gladness ; in our toil and 
in our rest; sleeping, waking; by day, by night; amidst all the en- 
gagements and exigencies of life. 

The burden of the discourse is to prove that this is 
so ; that religion is compatible with the business of Com- 
mon Life. This appears, Jirst, because religion, as a 
science, sets out doctrines easy to be understood by the 
humblest intellects ; and as an art, sets out duties which 
may be practised simultaneously with all other work. It 
is the art of being and of doing good : and for this art 
every profession and calling affords scope and disci- 
pline. 

When a child is learning to write, it matters not of what words the 
copy set to him is composed, the thing desired being that, whatever 
he writes, he learns to write well. When a man is learning to be 
a Christian, it matters not what his particular work in life may be, the 
work he does is but the copy-line set to him ; the main thing to be 
considered is that he learn to live well. 

The second consideration by which Mr. Caird supports 
his thesis is, that religion consists, not so much in doing 
spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts from a 
iacred or spiritual motive. ' A man may be a Christian 



CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 383 

thinker and writer as much when giving to science, or 
history, or biography, or poetry a Christian tone and 
spirit, as when composing sermons or writing hymns.' 

The third and most eloquent division of the discourse 
illustrates the thesis from the Mind's Power of acting on 
Latent Principles. Though we cannot, in our worldly 
work, be always consciously thinking of religion, yet un- 
consciously, insensibly, we may be acting under its ever 
present control. For example, the preacher, amidst all 
his mental exertions, has underneath the outward work- 
ings of his mind, the latent thought of the presence of 
his auditory. 

Like a secret atmosphere it surrounds and bathes his spirit as he 
goes on with the external work. And have not you, too, my friends, 
an Auditor — it may be, a 'great cloud of witnesses ' — but at least 
one all glorious Witness and Listener ever present, ever watchful, as 
the discourse of life proceeds ? Why, then, in this case too, while the 
outward business is diligently prosecuted, may there not be on your 
spirit a latent and constant impression of that awful inspection? 
What worldly work so absorbing as to leave no room in a believer's 
spirit for the hallowing thought of that glorious Presence ever near? 

We shall give but one extract more, the final illustra- 
tion of this third head of discourse. It is a very good 
specimen of one of those exciting and irresistible bursts 
by which Caird sweeps away his audience. Imagine the 
following sentences given, at first quietly, but with great 
feeling, gradually waxing in energy and rapidity ; and at 
length, amid dead stillness and hushed breaths, concluded 
as with a torrent's rush : — 

Or, have we not all felt that the thought of anticipated happinest "may 
blend itself with the work of our busiest hours? The labourer's com- 
in?, released from toil — the schoolboy's coming holiday, or the hard- 
wrought business man's approaching season of relaxation — the ex- 
pected return of a long absent and much loved friend; is not tha 



384 CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 

thought of these, or similar joyous events, one which often inter- 
mingles with, without interrupting, our common work? When a 
father goes forth to his ' labour till the evening,' perhaps often, very 
often, in the thick of his toils the thought of home may start up to 
cheer him. The smile that is to welcome him, as he crosses his lowly 
threshold when the work of the day is over, the glad faces, and merry 
voices, and sweet caresses of little ones, as they shall gather round 
him in the quiet evening hours, the thought of all this may dwell, a 
latent joy, a hidden motive, deep down in his heart of hearts, may 
come rushing in a sweet solace at every pause of exertion, and act 
like a secret oil to smooth the wheels of labour. The heart has a se- 
ci'et treasury, where our hopes and joys are often garnered, too precious 
to be parted with, even for a moment. 

And why may not the highest of all hopes and joys possess the same 
all-pervading influence? Have we, if our religion is real, no antici- 
T)ation of happiness in the glorious future? Is there no 'rest that re- 
maineth for the people of God,' no home and loving heart awaiting us 
when the toils of our hurried day of life are ended ? What is earthly 
rest or relaxation, what the release from toil after which we so often 
sigh, but the faint shadow of the saint's everlasting rest, the rest of 
^he soul m God? What visions of earthly bliss can ever, if our 
Christian faith be not a form, compare with ' the glory soon to be re- 
vealed ? ' What glory of earthly reunion- with the rapture of that 
hour when the heavens shall yield an absent Lord to our embrace, to 
be parted from us no more for ever ! And if all this be most sober 
vruth, what is there to except this joyful hope from that law to which, 
'n all other deep joys, our minds are subject? Why may we not, in 
this case too, think often, amidst our worldly work, of the House to 
which we are going, of the true and loving heart that beats for us, 
and of the sweet and joyous welcome that awaits us there? And 
even when we make them not, of set purpose, the subject of our 
thoughts, is there not enough of grandeur in the objects of a believ- 
er's hope to pervade his spirit at all times with a calm and reverential 
joy? Do not think all this strange, fanatical, impossible. If it do 
«eem so, it can only be because your heart is in the earthly, but not 
in the higher and holier hopes. No, my friends ! the strange thing is, 
not that amidst the world's work we should be able to think of our 
House, but ihat we should ever be able to forget it ; and the stranger, 
cadder still, that while the little day of life is passing — morning, 
noontide, evening — each stage more rapid than the last; while to 
many the shadows are alread}'' fast lengthening, and the declining sun 
warns them that 'the night is at hand, wherein no man can work,' 
there should be those amongst us whose whole thoughts are absorbed 



CONCERNrNG THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND. 385 

in the business of the world, and to whom the reflection never occurSj 
that soon they must go out into eternity, without a friend, without a 
home! 

The discourse thus ends in orthodox Scotch fashion, 
with a practical conclusion. 

We think it not unlikely that the sermon has been 
toned down a good deal before publication, in anticipation 
of severe criticism. Some passages which were very 
effective when delivered, have probably been modified so 
as to bring them more thoroughly within the limits of 
severe good taste. We think Mr. Caird has deserved 
the honours done him by royalty ; . and we willingly 
accord him his meed, as a man of no small force of 
intellect, of great power of illustration by happy analo- 
gies, of sincere piety, and of much earnestness to do 
good. He is still young — we believe considerably un- 
der forty — and much may be expected of him. 

But we have rambled on into an unduly long gossip 
about Scotch preaching, and must abruptly conclude. 
We confess that it would please us to see, especially in 
the pulpits of our country churches, a little infusion of 
its warmth, rejecting anything of its extravagance. 



35 




CHAPTER XIII. 
C'ONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

S?^ OES h ever come across you, my friend, with 
\) something of a start, that things cannot al- 
[^ ways go on in your lot as they are going 
now ? Does not a sudden thousjht sometimes 
flash upon you, a hasty, vivid ghmpse, of what you will 
be long hereafter, if you are spared in this world ? Our 
common way is too much to think that things will always 
go on as they are going. Not that we clearly think so : 
not that we ever put that opinion in a definite shape, and 
avow to ourselves that we hold it : but we live very much 
under that vague, general impression. We can hardly 
help it. When a man of middle age inherits a pretty 
country seat, and makes up his mind that he cannot yet 
afford to give up business and go to live at it, but con- 
cludes that in six or eight years he will be able with jus- 
tice to his children to do so, do you think he brings plainly 
before him the changes which must be wrought on him- 
self and those around him by these years ? I do not 
speak of the greatest change of all, which may come to 
any of us so very soon : I do not think of what may be 
done by unlooked-for accident : I think merely of whjit 
must be done by the passing on of time. I think of pos- 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 387 

sible changes in taste and feeling, of possible loss of lik- 
ing for that mode of life. I think of lungs that will play 
less freely, and of limbs that will suggest shortened walks, 
and dissuade from climbing hills. I think how the chil- 
dren will have outgrown daisy-chains, or even got beyond 
the season of climbino; trees. The middle-ao;ed man en- 
joys the prospect of the time when he shall go to his 
country house ; and the vague, undefined belief surrounds 
him, like an atmosphere, that he and his children, his 
views and likings, will be then just such as they are now. 
He cannot bring it home to him at how many points 
change w ill be cutting into him, and hedging him in, and 
paring him down. And we all live very much under that 
vague impression. Yet it is in many ways good for us to 
f^-el that we are going on — passing from the things 
which surround us — advancing into the undefined future, 
into the unknown land. And I think that sometimes we 
all have vivid flashes of such a conviction. I dare say, 
my friend, you have seen an old man, frail, soured, and 
shabby, and you have thought, with a start, Perhaps 
there is Myself of Future Years. 

We human beings can stand a great deal. There is 
great margin allowed by our constitution, physical and 
moral. I suppose there is no doubt that a man may daily 
for years eat what is unwholesome, breathe air which is 
bail, or go through a round of life which is not the best 
or the right one for either body or mind, and yet be little 
the worse. And so men pass through great trials and 
through long years, and yet are not altered so very much. 
The other day, walking along the street, I saw a man 
whom I had not seen for ten years. I knew that since I 
saw him last he had gone through very heavy troubles, 
and that these had sat very heavily upon him. I remem- 



388 CONCERNING FUTURE /K4RS. 

bered how he had lost that friend who was the dearest to 
him of all human beings, and I knew how broken down 
he had been for many months after that great sorrow 
came. Yet there he was, walking along, an unnoticod 
unit, just like any one else ; and he was looking wonder- 
fully well. No doubt he seemed pale, worn, and anx* 
ious : but he was very well and carefully dressed ; he 
was walking with a brisk, active step ; and I dare say in 
feeling pretty well reconciled to being what he is, and to 
the circumstances amid which he is living. Still, one felt 
that somehow a tremendous change had passed over him. 
T felt sorry for him, and a^l ^be more that he did not seem 
to feel sorry for himself. It made me sad to think that 
Bome day I should be *i^e him ; that perhaps in the eyes 
of my juniors I \^<^\ like him already, careworn and 
ageing. I dar'> '•'>^ in his feeling there was no such 
Bense of fa^lirg o^. Perhaps he was tolerably con- 
tent. H<*. "'"a^, /talking so fast, and looking so sharp, 
*hat I in sure he had no desponding feeling at the 
time. Despondency goes with slow movements and 
with 'fague looks. The sense of having materially 
^Uen off is destructive to the eagle-eye. Yes, he 
was tolerably content. We can go down-hill cheerfully, 
save at the points where it is sharply brought home 
to us that we are going down-hill. Lately I sat at din- 
ner opposite an old lady who had the remains of striking 
beauty. I remember how much she interested me. Her 
hair was false, her teeth were false, her complexion was 
shrivelled, her form had lost the round symmetry of ear- 
lier years, and was angular and stiff; yet how cheerful 
and lively she was ! She had gone far down-hill ptysi- 
cally ; but either she did not feel her decadence, or she 
had grown quite reconciled to it. Her daughter, a 



CONCERNING FUTURE TEARS. 380 

Llooraing matron, was there, happy, wealthy, gi)od ; yet 
not apparently a whit more reconciled to life than the 
aged grandame. It was pleasing, and yet it was sad, to 
see how well we can make up our mind to what is inevitr 
able. And such a sight brings up to one a glimpse of 
Future Years. The cloud seems to part before one, and 
through the rift you discern your earthly track far away, 
and a jaded pilgrim plodding along it with weary step , 
and though the pilgrim does not look like you, yet you 
know the pilgrim is yourself. 

This cannot always go on. To what is it all tending ? 
I am not thinking now of an out-look so grave, that this 
is not the place to discuss it. But I am thinking how 
everything is going on. In this world there is no stand- 
ing still. And everything that belongs entirely to this 
world, its interests and occupations, is going on towards 
a conclusion. It will all come to an end. It cannot go 
on forever. I cannot always be writing sermons as I do 
now, and going on in this regular course of hfe. I can- 
not always be writing essays. The day will come when 
I shall have no more to say, or when the readers of the 
Magazine will no longer have patience to listen to me in 
that kind fashion in which they have listened so long. I 
foresee it plainly, this evening, — even while writing my 
first essay for the Atlantic Monthly, the time when the 
reader shall open the familiar cover, and glance at the 
table of contents, and exclaim indignantly, ' Here is that 
tiresome person again with the four initials : why will he 
not cease to weary us ? * I write in sober sadness, my 
friend : I do not intend any jest. If you do not know 
that what I have written is certainly true, you have not 
lived very long. You have not learned the sorrowful 



bOO CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

lesson, that all worldly occupations and interests are wear- 
ing to their close. You cannot keep up the old thilig, 
however much you may wish to do so. You know how 
vain anniversaries for the most part are. You meet with 
certain old friends, to try to revive the old days ; but the 
spirit of the old time will not come over you. It is not 
a spirit that can be raised at will. It cannot go on for- 
ever, that walking down to church on Sundays, and as- 
cending those pulpit steps ; it will change to feeling, 
though I humbly trust it may be long before it shall 
change in fact. Don't you all sometimes feel something 
like that ? Don't you sometimes look about you and say 
to yourself. That furniture will wear out : those window- 
curtains are getting sadly faded ; they will not last a life- 
time ? Those carpets must be replaced some day ; and 
the old patterns which looked at you with a kindly, fa- 
miliar expression, through these long years, must be 
among the old familiar faces that are gone. These are 
little things, indeed, but they are among the vague rec- 
ollections that bewilder our memory ; they are among 
the things which come up in the strange, confused re- 
membrance of the dying man in the last days of life. 
There is an old fir-tree, a twisted, strange-looking fir- 
tree, which will be among my last recollections, I know, 
as it was among my first. It was always before my eyes 
when I was three, four, five years old : I see the pyra- 
midal top, rising over a mass of shrubbery ; I see il 
always against a sunset-sky ; always in the subdued twi- 
light in which we seem to see things in distant years. 
These old friends will die, you think ; who will take their 
place ? You will be an old gentleman, a frail old gentle- 
man, wondered at by younger men, and telling them long 
stories about the days when Lincoln was President, like 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 391 

those which weary you now about the Declaration of In- 
dependence. It will not be the same world then. Your 
children will not be always children. Enjoy their fresh 
youth while it lasts, for it will not last long. Do not 
skim over the present too fast, through a constant habit 
of onward-looking. Many men of an anxious turn are so 
eagerly concerned in providing for the future, that they 
hardly remark the blessings of the present. Yet it is 
only because the future will some day be present, that it 
deserves any thought at all. And many men, instead of 
heartily enjoying present blessings while they are present, 
train themselves to a habit of regarding these things as 
merely the foundation on which they are to build some 
vague fabric of they know not what. I have known a 
clergyman, who was very fond of music, and in whose 
church the music was very fine, who seemed incapable 
of enjoying its solemn beauty as a thing to be enjoyed 
while passing, but who persisted in regarding each beau- 
tiful strain merely as a promising indication of what his 
choir would come at some future time to be. It is a very 
bad habit, and one which grows unless repressed. You, 
my reader, when you see your children racing on the 
green, train yourself to regard all that as a happy end 
in itself. Do not grow to think merely that those sturdy 
young limbs promise to be stout and serviceable when 
they are those of a grown-up man ; and rejoice in the 
smooth little forehead with its curly hair, without any 
forethought of how it is to look some day when over- 
^hadow^ed (as it is sure to be) by the great wig of the 
Lord Chancellor. Good advice : let us all try to take it. 
Let all happy things be enjoyed as ends, as well as re- 
garded as means. Yet it is in the make of our nature 
\o he ever onward-looking ; and we cannot help it 



392 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

"When you get the first number for the year of the 
Magazine which you take in, you instinctively think of 
it as the first portion of a new volume ; and you are 
conscious of a certain though slight restlessness in the 
thought of a thing incomplete, and of a wish that you 
had the volume completed. And sometimes, thus look- 
ing onward into the future, you worry yourself with 
little thoughts and cares. There is that old dog : you 
have had him for many years ; he is growing stiff and 
frail ; what are you to do when he dies ? When he is 
gone, the new dog you get will never be like him ; he 
may be, indeed, a far handsomer and more amiable ani- 
mal, but he will not be your old companion ; he will not 
be surrounded with all those old associations, not merely 
with your own by-past life, but with the lives, the faces, 
and the voices of those who have left you, which invest 
with a certain sacredness even that humble but faithful 
friend. He will not have been the companion of your 
youthful walks, when you went at a pace which now you 
cannot attain. He will just be a common dog ; and who 
that has reached your years cares for that ? The other 
indeed was a dog too, but that was merely the substratum 
on which was accumulated a host of recollections : it is 
Auld Lang syne that walks into your study when your 
shaggy friend of ten summers comes stiffly in, and after 
many querulous turnings lays himself down on the rug 
before the fire. Do you not feel the like when you look 
at many little matters, and then look into the Future 
Years ? That harness — how will you replace it ? It 
will be a pang to throw it by, and it will be a considera- 
ble expense too to get a new suit. Then you think how 
long harness may continue to be serviceable. I once saw, 
on a pair of horses drawing a stage-roach among the 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 393 

hills, a set of harness which was thirty-five years old. It 
had been very costly and grand when new ; it had be- 
longed for some of its earliest years to a certain wealthy 
nobleman. The nobleman had been for many years in 
his grave, but there was his harness still. It was tre- 
mendously patched, and the blinkers were of extraordi- 
nary aspect ; but it was quite serviceable. There is 
comfort for you, poor country parsons ! How thor- 
oughly I understand your feeling about such little 
things. I know how you sometimes look at your phae- 
ton or your dog-cart ; and even while the morocco is 
fresh, and the wheels still are running with their first 
tires, how you think you see it after it has grown shabby 
and old-fashioned. Yes, you remember, not without a 
dull kind of pang, that it is wearing out. You have a 
neighbour, perhaps, a few miles off, whose conveyance, 
through the wear of many years, has become remarkably 
seedy ; and every time you meet it you think that there 
you see your own, as it will some day be. Every dog 
has his day : but the day of the rational dog is over- 
clouded in a fashion unknown to his inferior fellow-creat- 
ure ; it is overclouded by the anticipation of the coming 
day which will not be his. You remember how that 
great though morbid man, John Foster, could not heartily 
enjoy the summer weather, for thinking how every sunny 
day that shone upon him was a downward step towards 
the winter gloom. Each indication that the season was 
progressing, even though progressing as yet only to 
greater beauty, filled him with great grief. ' I have 
seen a fearful sight to-day,' he would say, ' I have seen 
a buttercup.' And we know, of course, that in his case 
Jhere was nothing like affectation ; it was only that, un- 
happily for himself, the bent of his mind was so onward- 



394 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

looking, that he saw only a premonition of the snows of 
December in the roses of June. It would be a blessing 
if we could quite discard the tendency. And while your 
trap runs smoothly and noiselessly, while the leather is 
fresh and the paint unscratched, do not worry yourself 
with visions of the day when it will rattle and crack, and 
when you will make it wait for you at the corner of back- 
streets when you drive into town. Do not vex yourself 
by fancying that you will never have heart to send off 
the old carriage, nor by wondering where you shall find 
the money to buy a new one. 

Have you ever read the Life of Mansie Waiick, Tailor 
in Dalkeith, by that pleasing poet and most amiable man, 
the late David Macbeth Moir ? I have been looking into 
it lately ; and I have regretted much that the Lowland 
Scotch dialect is so imperfectly understood in England, 
and that even where so far understood its raciness is so 
little felt ; for great as is the popularity of that work, it 
is much less known than it deserves to be. Only a 
Scotchman can thoroughly appreciate it. It is curious, 
and yet it is not curious, to find the pathos and the polish 
of one of the most touching and elegant of poets in the 
man who has with such irresistible humour, sometimes 
approaching to the farcical, delineated humble Scotch 
life. One passage in the book always struck me very 
much. We have in it the poet as well as the humorist ; 
and it is a perfect example of what I have been trying 
to describe in the pages which you have read. I mean 
the passage in which Mansie tells us of a sudden glimpse 
which, in circumstances of mortal terror, he once had of 
the future. On a certain ' awful night ' the tailor waa 
awakened by cries of alarm, and, looking out, he saw the 
next house to his own was on fire from cellar to garret. 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 395 

The earnings of poor Mansie's whole life were laid out 
on his stock in trade and his furniture, and it appeared 
likely that these would be at once destroyed. 

" Then," says he, " the darkness of the latter days 
came over my spirit like a vision before the prophet 
Isaiah ; and I could see nothing in the years to come 
but beggary and starvation, — myself a fallen-back old 
man, with an out-at-the-elbows coat, a greasy hat, and a 
bald brow, hirpling over a staff, requeeshting an awmous : 
Nanse a broken-hearted beggar-wife, torn down to tatters, 
and Aveeping like Rachel when she thought on better 
days ; and poor wee Benjie going from door to door 
with a meal-pock on his back." 

Ah, there is exquisite pathos there, as well as humour ; 
but the thing for which I have quoted that sentence is its 
startling truthfulness. You have all done what Mansie 
Wauch did, I know. Every one has his own way of do- 
ing it, and it is his own especial picture which each sees ; 
but there has appeared to us, as to Mansie, (I must recur 
to my old figure,) as it were a sudden rift in the clouds 
that conceal the future, and we have seen the way, far 
ahead — the dusty way — and an aged pilgrim pacing 
slowly along it ; and in that aged figure we have each re- 
cognized our own young self. How often have I sat down 
on the mossy wall that surrounded my churchyard, when 
I had more time for reverie than I have now — sat upon 
the mossy wall, under a great oak, whose branches came 
low down and projected far out — and looked at the 
rough gnarled bark, and at the passing river, and at the 
belfry of the little church, and there and then thought 
of Mansie "Wauch and of his vision of Future Years ! 
How often in these hours, or in long solitary walks and 
rides among the hills, have I had visions clear as tliat 



896 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

of Mansie Wauch, of how I should grow old in my 
country parish ! Do not think that I wish or intend to 
be egotistical, my friendly reader. I describe these feel- 
ings and fancies because I think this is the likeliest way 
in which to reach and describe your own. There was a 
rapid little stream that flowed, in a very lonely place 
between the highway and a cottage to which I often wen/ 
to see a poor old woman ; and when I came out of th« 
cottage, having made sure that no one saw me, I always 
took a great leap over the little stream, which saved going 
round a little way. And never once, for several years, 
did I thus cross it without seeing a picture as clear to the 
mind's eye as Mansie Wauch's — a picture which made 
me walk very thoughtfully along for the next mile or 
two. It was curious to think how one was to get through 
the accustomed duty after having grown old and frail. 
The day would come when the brook could be crossed in 
that brisk fashion no more. It must be an odd thing for 
the parson to walk as an old man into the pulpit, still his 
own, which was his own when he was a young man of 
six-and-twenty. What a crowd of old remembrances 
must be present each Sunday to the clergyman's mind, 
who has served the same parish and preached in the 
same church for fifty years ! Personal identity, con- 
tinued through the successive stages of life, is a common- 
place thing to think of; but when it is brought home to 
your own case and feeling, it is a very touching and a 
very bewildering thing. There are the same trees and 
hills as when you were a boy ; and when each of us 
comes to his last days in this world, how short a space 
it will seem since we were little children ! Let us hum- 
bly hope, that, in that brief space parting the cradle from 
the grave, we may (by help from above) have accom 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 39? 

plished a certain work which will cast its blessed influ- 
ence over all the years and all the ages before us. Yet 
it remains a strange thing to look forward and to see 
yourself with grey hair, and not much even of that ; 
to see your wife an old woman, and your little boy or 
girl grown up into manhood or womanhood. It is more 
strange still to fancy you see them all going on as usual 
in the round of life, and you no longer among them. 
You see your empty chair. There is your writing-table 
and your inkstand ; there are your books, not so care- 
fully arranged as they used to be ; perhaps, on the whole, 
less indication than you might have hoped that they miss 
you. All this is strange when you bring it home to your 
own case ; and that hundreds of millions have felt the 
like makes it none the less strange to you. The com- 
monplaces of life and death are not commonplace when 
they befall ourselves. It was in desperate hurry and 
agitation that Mansie "Wauch saw his vision ; and in like 
circumstances you may have yours too. But for the most 
part such moods come in leisure — in saunterings through 
the autumn woods — in reveries by the winter fire. 

I do not think, thus musing upon our occasional glimpses 
of the Future, of such fancies as those of early youth — 
fancies and anticipations of greatness, of felicity, of fame ; 
I think of the onward views of men approaching middle- 
age, who have found their place and their work in life, 
and who may reasonably believe that, save for great un- 
expected accidents, there will be no very material change 
in their lot till that " change come '* to which Job looked 
forward four thousand years since. There are great 
numbers of educated folk who are likely always to live 
in the same kind of house, to have the same establish- 
ment, to associate with the same class of people, to walk 



398 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

along the same streets, to look upon the same hills, a3 
long as they live. The only change will be the gradual 
one which will be wrought by advancing years. 

. And the onward view of such people in such circum- 
stances is generally a very vague one. It is only now 
and then that there comes the startling clearness of pros- 
pect so well set forth by Mansie Wauch. Yet sometimes 
when such a vivid view comes, it remains for days ana 
is a painful companion of your solitude. Don't you re- 
member, clerical reader of thirty-two, having seen a good 
deal of an old parson, rather sour in aspect, rather shab- 
by-looking, sadly pinched for means, and with powers 
dwarfed by the sore struggle with the world to maintain 
his family and to keep up a respectable appearance upon 
his limited resources ; perhaps with his mind made petty 
and his temper spoiled by the little worries, the petty 
malignant tattle and gossip and occasional insolence of 
a little backbiting village ? and don't you remember how 
for days you felt haunted by a sort of nightmare that 
there was what you would be, if you lived so long ? 
Yes ; you know how there have been times when for 
ten days together that jarring thought would intrude, 
whenever your mind was disengaged from w^ork ; and 
sometimes, when you went to bed, that thought kept 
you awake for hours. You knew the impression was 
morbid, and you were angry with yourself for your 
silliness ; but you could not drive it away. 

It makes a great difference in the prospect of Future 
Years, if you are one of those people w^ho, even after 
middle age, may still make a great rise in life. This 
will prolong the restlessness which in others is sobered 
down at forty : it will extend the period during which 
you will every now and then have brief seasons of fever- 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 399 

ish anxiety, hope, and fear, followed bj longer stretches 
of blank disappointment. And it will afford the oppor- 
tunity of experiencing a vividly new sensation, and of 
turning over a quite new leaf, after most people have 
settled to the jog-trot at which the remainder of the pil- 
grimage is to be covered. A clergyman of the Church 
of England may be made a bishop, and exchange a quiet 
rectory for a palace. No doubt the increase of responsi- 
bility is to a conscientious man almost appalling; but 
surely the rise in life is great. There you are, one of 
four-and-twenty, selected out of near twenty thousand. 
It is possible, indeed, that you may feel more reason for 
shame than for elation at the thought. A barrister un- 
known to fame, but of respectable standing, may be 
made a judge. Such a man may even, if he gets into 
the groove, be gradually pushed on till he reaches an em- 
inence which probably surprises himself as much as any 
one else. A good speaker in Parliament may at sixty 
or seventy be made a Cabinet Minister. And we can 
all imagine what indescribable pride and elation must in 
such cases possess the wife and daughters of the man 
who has attained this decided step in advance. I can 
say sincerely that I never saw human beings walk with 
so airy tread, and evince so fussily their sense of a great- 
ness more than mortal, as the wife and the daughter of an 
amiable but not able bishop I knew in my youth, when 
they came to church on the Sunday morning on which 
the good man preached for the first time in his lawn 
sleeves. Their heads were turned for the time ; but 
they gradually came right again, as the ladies became 
accustomed to the summits of human affairs. Let it be 
said for the bishop himself, that there was not a vestige 
of that sense of elevation about him. He looked per" 
fectly modest and unaffected. His dress was remarka- 



400 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

h]y ill put on, and his sleeves stuck out in the most awk- 
ward fashion ever assumed by drapery. I suppose that 
sometimes these rises in life come very unexpectedly. I 
have heard of a man who, when he received a letter from 
the Prime Minister of the day offering him a place of 
great dignity, thought the letter was a hoax, and did not 
notice it for several days. You could not certainly infer 
from his modesty what has proved to be the fact, that he 
has filled his place admirably well. The possibility of 
such material changes must no doubt tend to prolong the 
interest in life, which is ready to flag as years go on. 
But perhaps with the majority of men the level is found 
before middle age, and no very great worldly change 
awaits them. The path stretches on, with its ups and 
downs ; and they only hope for strength for the day. 
But in such men's lot of humble duty and quiet content 
there remains room for many fears. All human beings 
who are as well off as they can ever be, and so who 
have little room for hope, seem to be liable to the inva- 
sion of great fear as they look into the future. It seems 
to be so with kings, and with great nobles. Many such 
have lived in a nervous dread of change, and have ever 
been watching the signs of the times with apprehensive 
eyes. Nothing that can happen can well make such bet- 
ter ; and so they suffer from the vague foreboding of 
something which will make them worse. And the same 
law reaches to those in whom hope is narrowed down, 
cot by the limit of grand possibility, but of httle, — not 
by the fact that they have got all that mortal can get, but 
by the fact that they have got the little which is all that 
Providence seems to intend to give to (hem. And, indeed, 
there is something that is almost awful, when your af- 
fairs are all going happily, when your mind is clear and 
equal to its work, when your bodily health is unbroken. 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 401 

when jour home is pleasant, when jour income is ample, 
when jour children are healthj and merrj and hopeful, 
— in looking on to Future Years. The more happj jou 
are, the more there is of awe in the thought how frail 
are the foundations of jour earthlj happiness, — what 
havoc maj be made of them bj the chances of even a 
single daj. It is no wonder that the solemnitj and aw- 
fulness of the Future have been felt so much, that the 
languages of Northern Europe have, as I dare saj jou 
know, no word which expresses the essential notion of 
Futurit J. You think, perhaps, of shall and will. Well, 
these words have come now to convej the notion of Fu- 
turitj ; but thej do so onlj in a secondarj fashion. Look 
to their etjmologj, and jou will see that thej imply 
Futuritj, but do not express it. / shall do such a thing 
means I am hound to do it, I am under an ohligation to do 
it. I will do such a thing means I intend to do it, It is my 
present purpose to do it. Of course, if jou are under an 
obligation to do anjthing, or if it be jour intention to do 
anjthing, the probabilitj is that the thing will be done ; 
but the Northern familj of languages ventures no nearer 
than that towards the expression of the bare, awful idea 
of Future Time. It was no wonder that Mr. Croaker 
was able to cast a gloom upon the gajest circle, and the 
happiest conjuncture of circumstances, bj wishing that 
all might be as well that daj six months. Six months ! 
What might that time not do ? Perhaps jou have not 
read a little poem of Barrj Cornwall's, the idea of which 
must come home to the heart of most of us : — 

Touch us gently, Time ! 

Let us glide adown thy stream 
Gently, — as we sometimes glide 

Through a quiet dream. 
26 



402 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

Humble voyagers are we, 
Husband, wife, and children three — 
One is lost, — an angel, fled 
To the azure overhead. 
Touch us gently. Time ! 

We've not proud nor soaring wings: 
Our ambition, our content, 

Lies in simple things. 
Humble voyagers are we, 
O'er life's dim, unsounded sea, 
Seeking only some calm clime : — 
Touch us gently, gentle Time ! 

I know that sometimes, my friend, you will not .. 

much sleep, if, when you lay your head on your pillow, 
you begin to think how much depends upon your health 
and life. You have reached now that time at which you 
value life and health not so much for their service to 
yourself, as for their needfulness to others. There is a 
petition familiar to me in this Scotch country, where peo- 
ple make their prayers for themselves, which seems to 
me to possess great solemnity and force, when we think 
of all that is implied in it. It is. Spare useful lives ! 
One life, the slender line of blood passing into and pass- 
ing out of one human heart, may decide the question, 
whether wife and children shall grow up affluent, refined, 
happy, yes, and good, or be reduced to hard straits, with 
all the manifold evils which grow of poverty in the case 
of those who have been reduced to it after knowing other 
things. You often think, I doubt not, in quiet hours, 
what would become of your children, if you were gone. 
You have done, I trust, what you can to care for them, 
even from your grave : you think sometimes of a poet- 
ical figure of speech amid the dry technical phrases of 
English law : you know what is meant by the law of 
Mortmain ; and you like to think that even your dead 



CONCERNING FUTUPwE YEAES. 403 

hand may be felt to be kindly intermeddling yet in the 
affairs of those who were your dearest: that some little 
Bum, slender, perhaps, but as liberal as you could make it, 
may come in periodically when it is wanted, and seem 
like the gift of a thoughtful heart and a kindly hand 
which are far away. Yes, cut down your present income 
to any extent, that you may make some provision for 
jour children after you are dead. You do not wish that 
they should have the saddest of all reasons for taking 
care of you, and trying to lengthen out your life. But 
even after you have done everything which your small 
means permit, you will still think, with an anxious heart, 
of the possibilities of Future Years. A man or woman 
who has children has very strong reason for wishing to 
live as long as may be, and has no right to trifle with 
health or life. And sometimes, looking out into days to 
come, you think of the little things, hitherto so free from 
man's heritage of care, as they may some day be. You 
see them shabby, and early anxious : can that be the lit- 
tle boy's rosy face, now so pale and thin ? You see them 
in a poor room, in which you recognize your study chairs, 
with the hair coming out of the cushions, and a carpet 
which you remember now threadbare and in holes. 

It is no wonder at all that people are so anxious about 
money. Money means every desirable material thing on 
earth, and the manifold immaterial things which come of 
material possessions. Poverty is the most comprehensive 
earthly evil ; all conceivable evils, temporal, spiritual, and 
eternal, may come of that. Of course, great temptations 
attend its opposite ; and the wise man's prayer will be 
what it was long ago — ' Give me neither poverty nor 
riches.' But let us have no nonsense talked about money 
being of no consequence. The want of it has made many 



404 CONCERNING FUTURE YEAi^S. 

a father and mother tremble at the prospect of being 
taken from their children ; the want of it has embittered 
many a parent's dying hours. You hear selfish persons 
talking vaguely about faith. You find such heartless per- 
sons jauntily spending all they get on themselves, and 
then leaving their poor children to beggary, with the 
miserable pretext that they are doing all this through 
their abundant trust in God. Now this is not faith ; it is 
insolent presumption. It is exactly as if a man should 
jump from the top of St. Paul's, and say that he had 
faith that the Almaghty would keep him from being 
dashed to pieces on the pavement. There is a high au- 
thority as to such cases — ' Thou shalt not tempt the 
Lord thy God.' If God had promised that people should 
never fall into the miseries of penury under any circum- 
stances, it would be faith to trust that promise, however 
unlikely of fulfilment it might seem in any particular 
case. But God has made no such promise ; and if you 
leave your children without provision, you have no right 
to expect that they shall not suffer the natural con- 
sequences of your heartlessness and thoughtlessness. 
True faith lies in your doing everything you possibly can, 
and then humbly trusting in God. And if, after you have 
done your very best, you must still go, with but a blank 
outlook for those you leave, why, then, you may trust them 
to the Husband of the widow and Father of the father- 
less. Faith, as regards such matters, means firm belief 
that God will do all he has promised to do, however difli- 
cult or unlikely. But some people seem to think that 
faith means firm belief that God will do whatever they 
think would suit them, however unreasonable, and how- 
ever flatly in the face of all the established laws of Hi 3 
government. 



COKCERNING FUTURE TEARS. 405 

We all have it in our power to make ourselves miserable^ 
If we look far into future years and calculate their prob- 
abilities of evil, and steadily anticipate the worst. It is 
not expedient to calculate too far a-head. Of course, the 
right way in this, as in other things, is the middle way : 
we are not to run either into the extreme of over-careful- 
ness and anxiety on the one hand, or of recklessness and 
imprudence on the other. But as mention has been made 
of faith, it may safely be said that we are forgetful of that 
rational trust in God which is at once our duty and our 
inestimable privilege, if we are always looking out into 
the future, and vexing ourselves with endless fears as to 
how things are to go then. There is no divine promise, 
that, if a reckless blockhead leaves his children to starve, 
they shall not starve. And a certain inspired volume 
speaks with extreme severity of the man who fails to 
provide for them of his own house. But there is a divine 
promise which says to the humble Christian, — ' As thy 
days, so shall thy strength be.' If your affairs are going 
on fairly now, be thankful, and try to do your duty, and 
to do your best, as a Christian man and a prudent man, 
and then leave the rest to God. Your children are about 
you ; no doubt they may die, and it is fit enough that 
you should not forget the fragility of your most prized 
possessions; it is fit enough that you should sometimes 
sit by the fire and look at the merry faces and listen to 
the little voices, and think what it would be to lose them. 
But it is not needful, or rational, or Christian-like, to be 
ftlways brooding on that thought. And when they grow 
up, it may be hard to provide for them. The little thing 
that is sitting on your knee may before many years be 
alone in life, thousands of miles from you and from his 
early home, an insignificant item in the bitter price "vhich 



40 G CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

Britain pays for her Indian Empire. It is even possible, 
though you hardly for a moment admit that thought, that 
the child may turn out a heartless and wicked man, and 
prove your shame and heart-break ;- all wicked and heart- 
less men have been the children of somebody ; and many 
of them, doubtless, the children of those who surmised the 
future as little as Eve did when she smiled upon the in- 
fant Cain. And the fireside by which you sit, now merry 
and noisy enough, may grow lonely, — lonely with the 
second loneliness, not the hopeful solitude of youth look- 
ing forward, but the desponding loneliness of age looking 
back. And it is so with everything else. Your health 
may break down. Some fearful accident may befall you. 
The readers of the magazine may cease to care for your 
articles. People may get tired of your sermons. Peo- 
ple may stop buying your books, your wine, your gro- 
ceries, your milk and cream. Younger men may take 
away your legal business. Yet how often these fears 
prove utterly groundless ! It was good and wise advice 
given by one who had managed, with a cheerful and 
hopeful spirit, to pass through many trying and anx- 
ious years, to ' take short views : ' — not to vex and worry 
yourself by planning too far a-head. And a wiser than 
the wise and cheerful Sydney Smith had anticipated his 
philosophy. You remember Who said, ' Take no thought,* 
— that is, no over-anxious and over-careful thought — 
* for the morrow ; for the morrow shall take thought for 
the things of itself.' Did you ever sail over a blue sum- 
mer sea towards a mountainous coast, frowning, sullen, 
gloomy : and have you not seen the gloom retire before 
you as you advanced ; the hills, grim in the distance, 
Btretch into sunny slopes when you neared them ; and 
ihe waters smile in cheerful light that looked so black 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 407 

when they were far away ? And who is there that has 
not seen the parallel in actual life ? We have all known 
the anticipated ills of life — the danger that looked so 
big, the duty that looked so arduous, the entanglement 
that we could iiot see our way through — prove to have 
been nothing more than spectres on the far horizon ; and 
when at length we reached them, all their difficulty had 
vanished into air, leaving us to think what fools we had 
been for having so needlessly conjured up phantoms to 
slisturb our quiet. Yes, there is no doubt of it, a very 
great part of all we suffer in this world is from the ap- 
prehension of things that never come. I remember well 
how a dear friend, whom I (and many more) lately lost, 
told me many times of his fears as to what ho would do 
in a certain contingency which both he and I thought was 
quite sure to come sooner or later. I know that the an- 
ticipation of it caused him some of the most anxious hours 
of a very anxious, though useful and honoured life. How 
vain his fears proved ! He was taken from this world 
before what he had dreaded had cast its most distant 
shadow. Well, let me try to discard the notion which has 
been sometimes worrying me of late, that perhaps I have 
written nearly as many essays as any one will care to 
read. Don't let any of us give way to fears which may 
prove to have been entirely groundless. 

And then, if we are really spared to see those trials we 
sometimes think of, and which it is right that we should 
sometimes think of, the strength for them will come at the 
time. They will not look nearly so black, and we shall 
be enabled to bear them bravely. There is in human 
nature a marvellous power of accommodation to cir- 
cumstances. We can gradually make up our mind to 
almost anything. If this were a sermon instead of an 



408 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

essay, I should explain my theory of how this comes to 
be. I see in all this something beyond the mere natural 
instinct of acquiescence in what is inevitable ; something 
beyond the benevolent law in the human mind, that it 
^hall adapt itself to whatever circumstances it may be 
placed in ; something beyond the doing of the gentle com- 
forter Time. Yes, it is wonderful what people can go 
through, wonderful what people can get reconciled to. I 
dare say my friend Smith, when his hair began to fall off, 
made frantic efforts to keep it on. I have no doubt he 
anxiously tried all the vile concoctions which quackery 
advertises in the newspapers, for the advantage of those 
who wish for luxuriant locks. I dare say for a while it 
really weighed upon his mind, and disturbed his quiet, 
that he was getting bald. But now he has quite recon- 
ciled himself to his lot ; and with a head smooth and 
sheeny as the egg of the ostrich, Smith goes on through 
life, and feels no pang at the remembrance of the ambro- 
sial curls of his youth. Most young people, I dare say, 
think it will be a dreadful thing to grow old : a girl of 
eighteen thinks it must be an awful sensation to be thirty. 
Believe me, not at all. You are brought to it bit by bit ; 
and when you reach the spot, you rather like the view. 
And it is so with graver things. We grow able to do and 
to bear that which it is needful that we should do and bear. 
As is the day, so the strength proves to be. And you 
have heard people tell you truly, that they have been en- 
abled to bear what they never thought they could have 
come through with their reason or their life. I have no 
fear for the Christian man, so he keeps to the path of 
duty. Straining up the steep hill, his heart will grow 
gtout in just proportion to its steepness. Yes, and if the 
call to martyrdom came, I should not despair of finding 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 409 

men who would show themselves equal to it, even in this 
commonplace age, and among people who wear Highland 
cloaks and knickerbockers. The martyr's strength would 
come with the martyr's day. It is because there is no 
call for it now, that people look so little like it. 

It is very difficult, in this world, to strongly enforce a 
truth, without seeming to push it into an extreme. You 
are very apt, in avoiding one error, to run into the op- 
posite error ; forgetting that truth and right lie generally 
between two extremes. And in agreeing with Sydney 
Smith, as to the wisdom and the duty of ' taking short 
views,' let us take care of appearing to approve the do- 
ings of those foolish and unprincipled people who will 
keep no out-look into the future time at all. A bee, you 
know, cannot see more than a single inch before it ; and 
there are many men, and perhaps more women, who ap- 
pear, as regards their domestic concerns, to be very much 
of bees. Not bees in the respect of being busy ; but bees 
in the respect of being blind. You see this in all ranks 
of hfe. You see it in the artisan, earning good wages, 
yet with every prospect of being weeks out of work next 
summer or winter, who yet will not be persuaded to lay 
by a little in preparation for a rainy day. You see it in 
the country gentleman, who, having five thousand a year, 
spends ten thousand a year ; resolutely shutting his eyes 
to the certain and not very remote consequences. You 
see it in the man who walks into a shop and buys a lot 
of things which he has not the money to pay for, in the 
vague hope that something will turn up. It is a com- 
paratively thoughtful and anxious class of men who sys- 
tematically overcloud the present by anticipations of the 
future. The more usual thing is to sacrifice the future 
to the present ; to grasp at what in the way of present 



41 17 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

gratificiftion or gain can be got, with very little thought 
of the consequences. You see silly women, the wives 
of men whose families are mainly dependent on their 
lives, constantly urging on their husbands to extrava- 
gances which eat up the little provision which might 
have been made for themselves and their children when 
he is gone who earned their bread. There is no saddei 
sight, 1 think, than that which is not a very uncommon 
sight, the care-worn, anxious husband, labouring beyond 
his strength, often sorrowfully calculating how he may 
make the ends to meet, denying himself in every way ; 
and the extravagant idiot of a wife, bedizened with jew- 
ellery and arrayed in velvet and lace, who tosses away 
his hard earnings in reckless extravagance ; in entel-tain- 
ments which he cannot afford, given to people who do not 
care a rush for him ; in preposterous dress ; in absurd 
furniture ; in needless men-servants ; in green-grocers 
above measure; in resolute aping of the way of living 
of people with twice or three times the means. It is 
sad to see all the forethought, prudence, and moderation 
of the wedded pair confined to one of them. You would 
say that it will not be any solid consolation to the widow, 
when the husband is fairly worried into his grave at last, 
— when his daughters have to go out as governesses, and 
she has to let lodgings, — to reflect that while he lived 
they never failed to have champagne at their dinner par- 
ties ; and that they had three men to wait at table on 
such occasions, while Mr. Smith, next door, had never 
more than one and a maidservant. If such idiotic women 
would but look forward, and consider how all this must 
end ! If the professional man spends all he earns, what 
remains when the supply is cut off; when the toiling 
head and hand can toil no more? Ah, a little of the 



CONCERNING FUTUEE YEARS. 411 

economy and management which must perforce be i)rac- 
tised after that might have tended powerfully to put off 
the evil day. Sometimes the husband is merely the 
care-worn drudge who provides what the wife squan* 
ders. Have you not known such a thing as that a man 
should be labouring under an Indian sun, and cutting 
down every personal expense to the last shiUing, that 
he miffht send a liberal allowance to his wife in Enor- 
land ; while she meanwhile was recklessly spending 
twice what was thus sent her ; running up overwhelm- 
ing accounts, dashing about to public balls, paying for a 
bouquet what cost the poor fellow far away much thought 
to save, giving costly entertainments at home, filling her 
house with idle and empty-headed scapegraces, carrying 
on scandalous flirtations ; till it becomes a happy thing, 
if the certain ruin she is bringing on her husband's head 
is cut short by the needful interference of Sir Cresswell 
Cresswell ? There are cases in which tarring and feath- 
ering w^ould soothe the moral sense of the right-minded 
onlooker. And even where things are not so bad as in 
the case of which we have been thinking, it remains the 
social curse of this age, that people with a few hundreds 
a year determinedly act in various respects as if they had 
as many thousands. The dinner given by a man with 
eight hundred a year, in certain regions of the earth 
which I could easily point out, is, as regards food, wine, 
and attendance, precisely the same as the dinner given 
by another man who has five thousand a year. When 
will this end ? When will people see its silliness ? In 
truth, you do not really, as things are in this country, 
make many people better off by adding a little or a good 
deal to their yearly income. For in all probability they 
were living up to the very extremity of their means be* 



412 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

fore they got the addition ; and in all probability the 
first thing they do, on getting the addition, is so far to 
increase their establishment and their expense that it is 
just as hard a struggle as ever to make the ends meet. 
It would not be a pleasant arrangement, that a man who 
was to be carried across the straits from England to 
France, should be fixed on a board so weighted that his 
mouth and nostrils should be at the level of the water, 
and thus that he should be struggling for life, and barely 
escaping drowning all the way. Yet hosts of people, 
whom no one proposes to put under restraint, do as re- 
gards their income and expenditure a precisely analogous 
thing. They deliberately weight themselves to that de- 
gree that their heads are barely above water, and that 
any unforeseen emergency dips their heads under. They 
rent a house a good deal dearer than they can justly af- 
ford ; and they have servants more and more expensive 
than they ought ; and by many such things they make 
.sure that their progress through life shall be a drowning 
struggle ; while, if they would rationally resolve and 
manfully confess that they cannot afford to have things 
as richer folk have them, and arrange their way of liv- 
ing in accordance with what they can afford, they would 
enjoy the feeling of ease and comfort ; they would not 
be ever on the wretched stretch on which they are now, 
nor keeping up the iiollow appearance of what is not the 
fact. But there are folk who make it a point of honour 
never to admit that in doing or not doing anything, they 
are actuated for an instant by so despicable a considera- 
tion as the question whether or not they can afford it. 
And who shall reckon up the brains which this social 
calamity has driven into disease, or the early paralytic 
shocks which it has brought on ? 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 413 

"When you were very young, and looked forward to 
Future Years, did you ever feel a painful fear that you 
might outgrow your early home affections, and your asso- 
ciations with your native scenes ? Did you ever think to 
yourself, — Will the day come when I have been years 
away from that river's side, and yet not care ? I think 
we have all known the feeling. O plain church to which 
I used to go when I was a child, and where I used to 
think the singing so very splendid ! O little room where 
I used to sleep ! and you, tall tree, on whose topmost 
branch I cut the initials which perhaps the reader knows, 
did I not even then wonder to myself if the time would 
ever come when I should be far away from you, — far 
away, as now, for many years, and not likely to go back, 
— and yet feel entirely indifferent to the matter ? and did 
not I even then feel a strange pain in the fear that very 
likely it might ? These things come across the mind of a 
little boy with a curious grief and bewilderment. Ah, there 
is somethinor strange in the inner life of a thoughtful child 
of eight years old ! I would rather see a faithful record 
of his thoughts, feelings, fancies, and sorrows, for a single 
week, than know all the political events that have hap- 
pened during that space in Spain, Denmark, Norway, 
Sweden, Russia, and Turkey. Even amid the great grief 
at leaving home for school in your early days, did you not 
feel a greater grief to think that the day might come when 
you would not care at all ; when your home ties and affec- 
tions would be outgrown ; when you would be quite con- 
tent to live on, month after month, far from parents, sisters, 
brothers, and feel hardly a perceptible blank when you 
remembered that they were far away ? But it is of the 
essence of such fears, that, when the thing comes that 
you were afraid of, it has ceased to be fearful ; still it b 



414 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

with a little pang that you sometimes call to remem- 
brance how much you feared it once. It is a daily 
regret, though not a very acute one, (more's the pity,) 
to be thrown much, in middle life, into the society of an 
old friend whom as a boy you had regarded as very 
wise, and to be compelled to observe that he is a tre- 
mendous fool. You struggle with the conviction ; you 
think it wrong to give in to it ; but you cannot help it 
But it would have been a sharper pang to the child's 
heart, to have impressed upon the child the fact, that 
* Good Mr. Goose is a fool, and some day you will un- 
derstand that he is.' In those days one admits no imper- 
fection in the people and the things one likes. You like 
a person ; and he is good. That seems the whole case. 
You do not go into exceptions and reservations. I re- 
member how indignant I felt, as a boy, at reading some 
depreciatory criticism of the Waverley Novels. The crit- 
icism was to the effect that the plots generally dragged at 
first, and w^ere huddled up at the end. But to me the 
novels were enchaining, enthralling ; and to hint a defect 
in them stunned one. In the boy's feeling, if a thing be 
good, why, there cannot be anything bad about it. But 
in the man's mature judgment, even in the people he 
likes best, and in the things he appreciates most highly, 
there are many flaws and imperfections. It does not vex 
us much now to find that this is so ; but it would have 
greatly vexed us many years since to have been told that 
it would be so. I can well imagine, that, if you told a 
thoughtful and affectionate child, how well he would some 
day get on, far from his parents and his home, his wish 
would be that any evil might befall him rather than that ! 
We shrink with terror from the prospect of things which 
-v^ '".p.n take e«,sily enough when they come. I dare say 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 415 

Lord Chancellor Tlmrlow was moderately sincere when 
he exclaimed in the House of Peers, ' When I forget my 
king, may ray God forget me ! ' And you will under- 
stand what Leigh Hunt meant, when, in his pleasant 
poem of The Palfrey^ he tells us of a daughter who had 
lost a very bad and heartless father by death, that, 

The daughter wept, and wept the more, 
To think her tears would soon be o'er. 

Even in middle age, one sad thought which comes in 
the prospect of Future Years is of the change which 
they are sure to work upon many of our present views 
and feelings. And the change, in many cases, will be to 
the worse. One thing is certain, — that your temper will 
grow worse, if it do not grow better. Years will sour it, 
if they do not mellow it. Another certain thing is, that, 
if you do not grow wiser, you will be growing more fool- 
ish. It is very true that there is no fool so foolish as an 
old fool. Let us hope, my friend, that, whatever be our 
honest worldly work, it may never lose its interest. We 
must always speak humbly about the changes which com- 
ing time will work upon us, upon even our firmest reso- 
lutions and most rooted principles ; or I should say for 
myself that I cannot even imagine myself the same be- 
ing, with bent less resolute and heart less warm to that 
best of all employments which is the occupation of my 
life. But there are few things which, as we grow older, 
impress us more deeply than the transitoriness of thoughts 
and feelings in human hearts. Nor am I thinking of 
contemptible people only, when I say so. I am not think- 
ing of the fellow who is pulled up in court in an action 
for breach of promise of marriage, and who in one letter 
makes vows of unalterable affection, and in another letter, 



416 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

written a few weeks or months later, tries to wriggle out 
of his engagement. Nor am I thinking of the weak, 
though well-meaning lady, who devotes herself in succes- 
sion to a great variety of uneducated and unqualified re- 
ligious instructors ; who tells you one week how she has 
joined the flock of Mr. A., the converted prize-fighter, 
and how she regards him as by far the most improving 
preacher she ever heard ; and who tells you the next 
week that she has seen through the prize-fighter, that 
he has gone and married a wealthy Roman Catholic, and 
that now she has resolved to wait on the ministry of Mr. 
B., an enthusiastic individual who makes shoes during the 
week and gives sermons on Sundays, and in whose ad- 
dresses she finds exactly what suits her. I speak of the 
better feelings and purposes of wiser, if not better folk. 
Let me think here of pious emotions and holy resolutions, 
of the best and purest frames of heart and mind. Oh, if 
we could all always remain at our best ! And after all, 
permanence is the great test. In the matter of Christian 
faith and feeling, in the matter of all our worthier prin- 
ciples and purposes, that which lasts longest is best. This, 
indeed, is true of most things. The worth of anything de- 
pends much upon its durability, — upon the wear that is in 
it. A thing that is merely a fine flash and over only dis- 
appoints. The highest authority has recognized this. You 
remember Who said to his friends, before leaving them, 
that He would have them bring forth fruit, and much fruit. 
But not even that was enough. The fairest profession for 
a time, the most earnest labour for a time, the most ardent 
affection for a time, would not suffice. And so the Re- 
deemer's words were, — ' I have chosen you, and or- 
dained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and 
that your fruit should remain.^ Well, let us f.rubt, tbat, 



CONCERNING FUTURE TEARS. 417 

in the most solemn of all respects, onlj progress slxall be 
brought to us by all the changes of Future Years. 

But it is quite vain to think that feelings, as distin- 
guished from principles, shall not lose much of their 
vividness, freshness, and depth, as time goes on. You 
cannot now by any effort revive the exultation you felt 
at some unexpected great success, nor the heart-sinking 
of some terrible loss or trial. You know how women, 
after the death of a child, determine that every day, as 
long as they live, they will visit the little grave. And 
they do so for a time, sometimes for a long time ; but 
they gradually leave off. You know how burying-places 
are very trimly and carefully kept at first, and how flow- 
ers are hung upon the stone ; but these things gradually 
cease. You know how many husbands and wives, after 
their partner's death, determine to give the remainder of 
life to the memory of the departed, and would regard 
with sincere horror the suggestion that it was possible 
they should ever marry again ; but after a while they do. 
And you will even find men, beyond middle age, who 
made a tremendous work at their first wife's death, and 
wore very conspicuous mourning, who in a very few 
months may be seen dangling after some new fancy, and 
who in the prospect of their second marriage evince an 
exhilaration that approaches to crackiness. It is usual 
to speak of such things in a ludicrous manner, but I con- 
fess the matter seems to me anything but one to laugh 
at. I think that the rapid dying out of warm feelings, 
the rapid change of fixed resolutions, is one of the most 
sorrowful subjects of reflection which it is possible to 
suggest. Ah, my friends, after we die, it M'ould not be 
expedient, even if it were possible, to come back. Many 
of us would not like to find how very little they miss us 
27 



418 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

But still, it is the manifest inlention of the Creator that 
strong feelings should be transitory. The sorrowful 
thing is when thej pass and leave absolutely no trace 
behind them. There should always be some corner kept 
in the heart for a feeling which once possessed it all. 
Let us look at the case temperately. Let us face and 
admit the facts. The healthy body and mind can get 
over a great deal ; but there are some things which it ix 
not to the credit of our nature should ever be entirel;^ 
got over. Here are sober truth, and sound philosophy, 
and sincere feeling together, in the words of Philip van 
Artevelde : — 

Well, "well, she's gone, 
And I have tamed my sorrow. Pain and grief 
Are transitory things, no less than joy; 
And though they leave us not the men we were, 
Yet they do leave us. You behold me here, 
A man bereaved, with something of a blight 
Upon the early blossoms of his life, 
And its first verdure, — having not the less 
A living root, and drawing from the earth 
Its vital juices, from the air its powers: 
And surely as man's heart and strength are whole, 
His appetites regerminate, his heart 
Re-opens, and his objects and desires 
Spring up renewed. 

But though Artevelde speaks truly and well, you re- 
msmber how Mr. Taylor, in that noble play, works out 
to our view the sad sight of the deterioration of charac- 
ter, the growing coarseness and harshness, the lessening 
tenderness and kindliness, which are apt to come with 
advancing years. Great trials, we know, passing over 
us, may influence us either for the worse or the better ; 
and unless our nature is a very obdurate and poor one, 
though they may leave us, they will not leave us the men 



• CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 419 

we were. Once, at a public meeting, I heard a man in 
eminent station make a speech. I had never seen him 
before ; but I remembered an inscription which I had 
read, in a certain churchyard far awaj, upon the stone 
that marked the resting-place of his young wife, who had 
died many years before. I thought of its simple words 
of manly and hearty sorrow. I knew that the eminence 
he had reached had not come till she who would have 
been proudest of it was beyond knowing it or caring for 
it. And I cannot say with what interest and satisfaction 
I thought I could trace, in the features which were sad 
without the infusion of a grain of sentimentalism, in the 
subdued and quiet tone of the man's whole aspect and 
manner and address, the manifest proof that he had not 
shut down the leaf upon that old page of his history, that 
he had never quite got over that great grief of earlier 
years. One felt better and more hopeful for the sight. 
I suppose many people, after meeting some overwhelm- 
ing loss or trial, have fancied that they would soon die ; 
but that is almost invariably a delusion. Various dogs 
have died of a broken heart, but very few human beings. 
The inferior creature has pined away at his master's 
loss : as for us, it is not that one would doubt the depth 
and sincerity of sorrow, but that there is more endurance 
in our constitution, and that God has appointed that grief 
ehall rather mould and influence than kill. It is a much 
gadder sight than an early death, to see human beings 
live on after heavy trial, and sink into something very 
unlike their early selves and very inferior to their early 
selves. I can well believe that many a human being, if 
he could have a glimpse in innocent youth of what he 
will be twenty or thirty years after, would pray in an- 
guish to be taken before coming to that ! Mansie 



420 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

"Waucli's glimpse of destitution was bad enough ; but a 
million times worse is a glimpse of hardened and una- 
bashed sin and shame. And it would be no comfort -^ 
it would be an aggravation in that view — to think that 
by the time you have reached that miserable point, you 
will have grown pretty well reconciled to it. That is 
the worst of all. To be wicked and depraved, and to 
feel it, and to be wretched under it, is bad enough ; but it 
is a great deal worse to have fallen into that depth of 
moral degradation, and to feel that really you don't care. 
The instinct of accommodation is not always a blessing. 
It is happy for us, that, though in youth we hoped to live 
in a castle or a palace, we can make up our mind to live 
in a little parsonage or a quiet street in a country town. 
It is happy for us, that, though in youth we hoped to be 
very great and famous, we are so entirely reconciled to 
being little and unknown. But it is not happy for the 
poor girl who walks the Haymarket at night that she 
feels her degradation so little. It is not happy that she 
has come to feel towards her miserable life so differently 
now from what she would have felt towards it, had it 
been set before her while she was the blooming, thought- 
less creature in the little cottage in the country. It is 
only by fits and starts that the poor drunken wretch, liv- 
ing in a garret upon a little pittance allowed him by his 
relations, who was once a man of character and hope, 
feels what a sad pitch he has come to. If you could get 
him to feel it constantly, there would be some hope of 
liis reclamation even yet. 

It seems to me a very comforting thought, in looking 
on to Future Years, if you are able to think that you are 
in a profession or a calling from which you will never 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 421 

retire. For the prospect of a total change in your mode 
of life, and the entire cessation of the occupation which 
for many years employed the greater part of your wak- 
ing thoughts, and all this amid the failing powers and 
flagging hopes of declining years, is both a sad and a 
perplexing prospect to a thoughtful person. For such a 
person cannot regard this great change simply in the 
light of a rest from toil and worry ; he will know quite 
well what a blankness, and listlessness, and loss of inter- 
est in life, will come of feeling all at once that you have 
nothing at all to do. And so it is a great blessing, if your 
vocation be one which is a dignified and befitting one for 
an old man to be engaged in, one that beseems his grav- 
ity and his long experience, one that beseems even his 
slow movements and his white hairs. It is a pleasant 
thing to see an old man a judge ; his years become the 
judgment-seat. But then the old man can hold such an 
office only while he retains strength of body and mind 
efficiently to perform its duties ; and he must do all his 
work for himself: and accordingly a day must come 
when the venerable Chancellor resigns the Great Seal ; 
when the aged Justice or Baron must give up his place ; 
and when these honoured Judges, though still retaining 
considerable vigour, but vigour less than enough for their 
hard work, are compelled to feel that their occupation is 
gone. And accordingly I hold that what is the best of 
all professions, for many reasons, is especially so for this, 
that you need never retire from it. In the Church you 
need not do all your duty yourself. You may get assist- 
ance to supplement your own lessening strength. The 
energetic young curate or curates may do that part of 
the parish work which exceeds the power of the ageing 
incumbent, while the entire parochial machinery has still 



422 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

the advantage of being directed by his wisdom and ex- 
perience, and while the old man is still permitted to do 
what he can with such strength as is spared to him, and 
to feel that he is useful in the noblest cause yet. And 
even to extremest age and frailty, — to age and frailfy 
which would long since have incapacitated the judge lor 
the Bench — the parish clergyman may take some share 
in the much-loved duty in which he has laboured so long. 
He may still, though briefly, and only now and then, 
address his flock from the pulpit, in words which his very 
feebleness will make far more touchingly effective than 
the most vigorous eloquence and the richest and fullest 
tones of his young coadjutors. There never will be, 
within the sacred walls, a silence and reverence more 
profound than when the withered kindly face looks as of 
old upon the congregation, to whose fathers its owner 
first ministered, and which has grown up mainly under 
his instruction, — and when the voice that falls familiarly 
on so many ears tells again, quietly and earnestly, the 
old story which we all need so much to hear. And he 
may still look in at the parish school, and watch the 
growth of a generation that is to do the work of life 
when he is in his grave ; and kindly smooth the chil- 
dren's heads ; and tell them how One, once a little child, 
and never more than a young man, brought salvation 
alike to young and old. He may still sit by the bedside 
of the sick and dying, and speak to. such with the sym- 
pathy and the solemnity of one who does not forget that 
the last great realities are drawing near to both. But 
there are vocations which are all very well for young or 
middle-aged people, but which do not quite suit the old. 
Such is that of the barrister. Wrangling and hair-split- 
ting, browbeating and bewildering witnesses, makirg 



CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 423 

coarse jokes to excite the laughter of common jurymen, 
and addressing such with clap-trap bellowings, are not the 
work for grej-headed men. If such remain at the bar, 
rather let them have the more refined work of the Equity 
Courts, where you address judges, and not juries ; and 
where you spare clap-trap and misrepresentation, if for 
no better reason, because you know that these will not 
stand you in the slightest stead. The work which best 
befits the aged, the work for which no mortal can ever 
become too venerable and dignified or too weak and frail, 
is the work of Christian usefulness and philanthropy. 
And it is a beautiful sight to see, as I trust we all have 
seen, that work persevered in with the closing energies 
of life. It is a noble test of the soundness of the prin- 
ciple that prompted to its first undertaking. It is a hope- 
ful and cheering sight to younger men, looking out with 
something of fear to the temptations and trials of the 
years before them. Oh ! if the grey-haired clergyman, 
with less now, indeed, of physical strength and mere phys- 
ical warmth, yet preaches, with the added weight and 
solemnity of his long experience, the same blessed doc- 
trines now, after forty years, that he preached in his 
early prime ; if the philanthropist of half a century 
since is the philanthropist still, — still kind, hopeful, and 
unwearied, though with the snows of age upon his head, 
and the hand that never told its fellow of what it did 
now trembling as it does the deed of mercy ; then I 
think that even the most doubtful will believe that the 
principle and the religion of such men were a glorious 
reality ! The sternest of all touchstones of the genuine- 
ness of our better feelings is the fashion in which they 
Btand the wear of years. 



424 CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS. 

But my shortening space warns me to stop ; and I 
must cease, for the present, from these thoughts of Fu- 
ture Years, — cease, I mean, from writing about that 
mysterious tract before us : who can cease from think- 
ing of it ? You remember how the writer of that Httle 
poem which has been quoted asks Time to touch gently 
him and his. Of course he spoke as a poet, stating the 
case fancifully, — but not foi'getting, that, when we come to 
sober sense, we must prefer our requests to an Ear more 
ready to hear us and a Hand more ready to help. It is 
liOt to Time that I shall apply to lead me through life into 
immortality ! And I cannot think of years to come with- 
out going back to a greater poet, whom we need not 
esteem the less because his inspiration was loftier than 
that of the Muses, who has summed up so grandly in one 
comprehensive sentence all the possibilities which could 
befall him in the days and ages before him. " Thou shalt 
guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to 
glory ! " Let us humbly trust that in that sketch, round 
and complete, of all that can ever come to us, my readers 
and I may be able to read the history of our Futura 
Years I 



CONCLUSION. 




ND now, friendly reader, who have borne 
^-1 me company so far, your task is ended. 
4 You will have no more of the Recrea- 
^^■^j TioNs OF A Country Parson. Yet do 
not be alarmed. I trust you have not seen the writer's 
last appearance. It is only that the essays which he 
hopes yet to write, will not be composed in the compara- 
tive leisure of a country clergyman's quiet life. And not 
merely is it still a pleasant change of occupation, to write 
such chapters as those you have read : but the author 
cannot forget that to them he is indebted for the acquaint- 
ance of some of the most valued friends he has in this 
world. It was especially delightful to find a little sym- 
pathetic public, whose taste these papers suited ; and to 
which they have not been devoid of profit and comfort. 
Nor was it without a certain subdued exultation th/it a 
quiet Scotch minister learned that away across the ocean 
he had found an audience as large and sympathetic as in 
his own country ; and a kind appreciation by the organs 
of criticism there, which he could not read without much 
emotion. Of course, if I had fancied myself a great 
genius, it would have seemed nothing strange tliat the 



426 CONCLUSION. 

thoughts I had written down in my httle study in the 
country manse, should be read by many fellow-crea- 
tures four thousand miles off. But tlien I knew I was 
not a great genius : and so I felt it at once a great pleas- 
ure and a great surprise. My heart smote me when 
I thought of some flippant words of depreciation which 
hcse essays have contained concerning our American 
brothers. They are the last this hand shall ever write : 
and I never will forget how simple thoughts, only sincere 
and not unconsidered, found their way to hearts, kindly 
Scotch and English yet, though beating on the farther 
side of the Great Atlantic. 

After all, a clergyman's great enjoyment is in his duty: 
and I think that, unless he be crushed down by a parish 
of utter misery and destitution, in which all he can do is 
like a drop in the ocean (as that great and good man Dr. 
Guthrie tells us he was), the town is to the clergyman 
better than the country. The crowded city, when all is 
said, contains the best of the race. Your mind is stirred 
up there, to do what you could not have done elsewhere. 
The best of your energy and ability is brought out by the 
never-ceasing spur. 

Yet you will be sensible of various evils in the city 
clergyman's life. One is the great evil of over-work. 
You are always on the stretch. You never feel that 
your work is overtaken. The time never comes, in 
which you feel that you may sit down and rest : never 
comes, at least, save in the autumnal holiday. It is ex- 
pedient that a city clergyman should have his mind well 
stored before going to his charge : for there he will find 
a perpetual drain upon his mind, and very little time for 
r« filing it by general reading. To prepare two sermons 



CONCLUSION". 427 

a week, or even one sermon a week, for an educated 
congregation (or indeed for any congregation), implies 
no small sustained effort. It is not so very liard to write 
one sermon in one week ; but is very hard to write thirty 
sermons in thirty successive' weeks. You know how five 
miles in five hours are nothing : but a thousand miles in 
a thousand hours are killing. But every one knows that 
the preparation for the pulpit is the least part of a town 
clergyman's work. You have many sick to visit regular- 
ly : many frail and old people who cannot come to church. 
You have schools, classes, missions. And there is the 
constant effort to maintain some acquaintance with the 
families that attend your church, so that you and they 
shall not be strangers. I am persuaded that there ought 
to be at least two clergymen to every extensive parish. 
For it is not expedient that the clergy should have their 
minds and bodies ever on the strain, just to get throug? 
the needful work of the day. There is no opportunity, 
then, for the accumulation of some stock and store of 
thought and learning. And one important service which 
the clergy of a country ought to render it, is the mainte- 
nance of learning, and general culture. Indeed, a man 
not fairly versed in literature and science is not capable* 
of preaching as is needful at the present day. And when 
always overdriven, a man is tempted to lower his stand- 
ard : and instead of trying to do his work to the very 
best of his ability, to wish just to get decently through it. 
Then, as for other men, they have the great happiness 
of knowing when their work is done. When a lawyer 
has attended to his cases, he has no more to do that day. 
So when the doctor has visited his patients. But to cleri- 
cal work there is no limit. Your work is to do all the 
good you can. There is the parish : there is the populp- 



428 CONCLUSION. 

tion : and the uneasy conscience is always suggesting tbia 
and that new scheme of benevolent exertion. The only 
limit to the clergyman's duty is his strength : and very 
often that limit is outrun. Oh that one could wisely fix 
what one may safely and rightly do ; and then resolutely 
determine not to attempt any more ! But who can do 
that ? If your heart be in your work, you are eveiy 
now and then knocking yourself up. And you cannot 
help it. You advise your friends prudently against over- 
work ; and then you go and work till you drop. 

And a further evil of the town parish is, that a great 
part of your work is done by the utmost stretch of body 
and mind. Much of it is work of that nature, that when 
you are not actually doing it, you wonder how you can 
do it at all. When you think of it, it is a very great 
trial and effort to preach each Sunday to a thousand or 
fifteen hundred human beings. And by longer experi- 
ence, Knd that humbler self-estimate which longer experi- 
ence brings, the trial is ever becoming greater. It is the 
utmost strain of human energy, to do that duty fittingly. 
You know how easily some men go through their work. 
It is constant and protracted ; but not a very great strain 
at any one time : there is no overwhelming nervous ten- 
sion. I suppose even the Chief Justice, or the Lord 
Chancellor, when in the morning he walks into Court 
and takes his seat on the bench, does so without a trace 
of nervous tremour. He is thoroughly cool. He has a 
perfect conviction that he is equal to his work ; that he 
is master of it. But preaching is to many men an un- 
ceasing nervous excitement. There is great wear in it. 
And this is so, I am persuaded, even with the most eminent 
men. Preaching is a thing by itself. When you pi'op- 
erly reflect upon it, it is very solemn, responsible, and 



CONCLUSION". 429 

awful work. Not long since, I heard the Bishop of Ox- 
ford preach to a very great congregation. I was sitting 
very near him, and watched him with the professional in- 
terest. I am much mistaken if that great man was not 
as nervous as a young parson, preaching for the iirst 
time. He had a number of little things in the pulpit 
to look after : his cap, gloves, handkerchief, sermon-case : 
I remember the nervous way in which he was twitch- 
ing them about, and arranging them. No doubt that 
tremour wore off when he began to speak ; and he gave 
a most admirable sermon. Still, the strain had been 
there, and had been felt. And I do not think that the 
like can recur week by week, without considerable wear 
of the principle of life within. Now, in preaching to a 
little country congregation, there is much less of that 
wear : to say nothing of the increased physical effort of 
addressing many hundreds of people, as compared with 
that of addressing eighty or ninety. It is quite possible 
that out of the many hundreds, there may not be very 
many individuals of whom, intellectually, you stand in 
very overwhelming awe : and the height of a crowd of a 
thousand people is no more than the height of the tallest 
man in it. Still, there is always something very impos- 
ing and awe-striking in the presence of a multitude of 
human beings. 

And yet, if you have physical strength equal to your 
work, I do not think that for all the nervous anxiety 
which attends your charge, or for all jts constant pres- 
sure, you would ever wish to leave it. There is a hap- 
piness in such sacred duty which only those who have 
experienced it know. And without (so far as you are 
aware) a shade of self-conceit, but in entire humility and 



430 CONCLUSION. 

deep thankfulness, you will rejoice that God makes you 
the means of comfort and advantage to many of your 
fellow-men. It is a delightful thing to think that you 
are of use : and, whether in town or country, the diligent 
clergyman may always hope that he is so, less or more. 



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